Google search partners are websites and apps that do not belong to Google and that show the ads from Search campaigns inside their own internal search results, on directory pages and on product pages.
In a new Search campaign they are switched on by default. Before deciding whether to keep them, you need to know how much spend is already going there: on the Campaigns screen open Segment > Network (with search partners) and read the rows that appear under each campaign. That number is the starting point for everything that follows.
Where the ads end up
The definition in the Google Ads Help Centre lists the placements one by one: search pages, site directory pages, product detail pages, YouTube search results and watch pages. And the user's search does not always start with typing: it can come from a suggested search, a voice input, a click on a related term or browsing the site's directory.
Partners can customise the position, size, formatting and visual style of ads on their site, so your ad does not necessarily look the way it does on Google and may carry the label "Ads by Google" instead of "Sponsored". You only pay per click, and the cost per click can end up higher or lower than your maximum bid on the Search Network.
One detail changes how you read the reports: the click-through rate on partner sites has no effect on your Quality Score on Google. It is stated on the page about the Search Network, and it is why a high CTR on partners is not good news in itself: it does not help you in the auction and tells you nothing about the quality of the traffic.
There is no public list of partner sites. Google says that more than two million third-party websites and apps partner with it to show ads, but that figure covers the whole publisher network, not just the search partner network.
Not the same as the Google Partners programme
Two different things share a word, and the confusion is common. The Google Partners programme is the badge system for agencies that manage Google Ads accounts on behalf of others. Search partners are advertising inventory. A Premier Partner agency is not a search partner, and a site hosting your ads has no badge.
You can see how much this overlap weighs by looking at the searches themselves. In the UK "google partners" gets 590 searches a month, against 50 for "google search partners" (DataForSEO, Google UK, September 2026). On 26 September 2026 the first page of Google UK for "google search partners" showed Google help pages that mention search partners only in passing, a 2017 article on the Keyword Planner, a Reddit thread about Microsoft Ads syndicated partners and the LinkedIn pages of two recruitment firms with "Search Partners" in their name, while People also ask included "How much does it cost to hire a Google Partner?". The official definition of the ad network was not among the organic results. Someone looking for the meaning of the checkbox they have just seen in their campaign settings will, more often than not, end up reading about something else.
Which exclusions work on which network
The search partner network inherits some control levers from the Display Network and not others. The table below follows the coverage Google states on its content suitability page, and explains why certain exclusions an advertiser takes for granted on video do not exist on Search.
| Control lever | Search and search partners | Display Network | Google video partners |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inventory types (expanded, standard, limited) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Content type exclusion | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Digital content label exclusions | No | Yes | Yes |
| Excluded placements (up to 65,000) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Excluded content keywords (up to 1,000) | Yes, but only from Account settings | Yes | Yes |
| Excluded content themes | No | Yes | Yes |
The content keywords row is the one that wastes the most time: for Search and partners the exclusion only applies at account level, and anyone looking for it inside the campaign will not find it.
How to see which sites your ads appeared on
Since August 2025 there has been a full placement report for the search partner network, available for Search, Shopping and App campaigns. The path is Report editor, then the "When and where ads showed" menu, then Content suitability. It returns the list of sites and the impressions for each.
Two limits need reading before drawing conclusions. The report contains impressions and nothing else: no cost, no conversions per site. And it is not exhaustive, because a placement only appears if in the chosen period it had at least five impressions, or more than zero clicks, video views or conversions. The long tail of sites with four impressions is left out.
On Performance Max the picture is different: since January 2026 the SPN breakdown in channel performance reports has been live on all customer IDs, in Google Ads and in Search Ads 360. In April 2026 came the invalid activity credit report, which shows at campaign level the credit issued for invalid traffic after the invoice was finalised, with adjustment metrics for cost, clicks and conversion rate.
There is an inconsistency within the documentation itself: the Search Network page still says that Google Ads "doesn't provide information detailing the website where your ad was shown on the Search Network, unless you are running a Performance Max campaign", while the placement report for Search campaigns has existed for over a year. When the two pages disagree, the interface is right: check the report editor.
What Google says about performance, and on what conditions
In December 2025 Google published two numerical claims about the search partner network, in the SPN release notes. Advertisers for whom partner spend was at least 5% of their ad spend typically saw an 11% uplift in conversions using volume-focused Smart Bidding strategies (Target CPA or Maximise conversions), and a 7% uplift in conversion value with value-focused strategies (Target ROAS or Maximise conversion value).
The conditions matter as much as the percentages. These are Google's numbers, not the result of an independent check, like much of the data circulating about this platform that we have tried to sort through in our verified Google Ads statistics. They apply to advertisers who already have at least 5% of spend on partners, and Google specifies that they refer to campaigns not constrained by budget: a campaign that runs out of budget every day is not the case described. Anyone using manual bids, meanwhile, is already working with an automated system without having chosen it, because since July 2023 Google has applied Smart pricing or Smart Bidding depending on whether conversion tracking is in place and has enough volume.
What has changed since 2023
The network has been reworked a good deal in three years, and many guides still in circulation describe a state of affairs that no longer applies. The dates, from the official release notes:
| When | What changed |
|---|---|
| July 2023 | On manual-bid campaigns running on partners, Google applies Smart pricing or Smart Bidding. |
| February 2025 | Smart Bidding update for inventory-constrained traffic on the partner network. |
| April 2025 | Location targeting brought into line with advertisers' expectations, to reduce spend from unexpected locations. Third-party pre-screening launches with DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science and Zefr. |
| August 2025 | Full placement reporting for Search, Shopping and App campaigns. |
| January 2026 | SPN breakdown in Performance Max channel reports, on all customer IDs and in Search Ads 360 as well. |
| 10 February 2026 | Parked domains (AFD) leave the search partner network. The option to include them disappears from account settings. |
| April 2026 | Invalid activity credit report in the report editor, for Search and Performance Max campaigns. |
The February 2026 row is the one that matters most, because parked domains (pages with no content, monetised purely with ads) were the part of the inventory that most often ended up in advertisers' complaints. They are gone, and any article that still cites them as a current risk is out of date.
When to switch them off
The signal to watch is not the CTR, it is the ratio between the numbers. If, with spend unchanged, clicks go up, cost per click drops sharply and click-through rate shoots up, the system has almost always shifted delivery towards partners. Check it straight away in the network segment, not at the end of the month.
On partners the matching between keyword and query is less precise than in Search campaigns, and the user's search can start from a click on a related term or from browsing a directory. For a lead generation campaign this turns into contacts who, on the phone, cannot remember where they clicked: the cost per lead stays acceptable and the close rate does not. For an e-commerce site with solid conversion tracking the sums are simpler, because conversion value either arrives or it does not, and the benefits of the platform show up in the spreadsheet rather than in gut feeling.
On a Search campaign the steps to switch them off are these: Campaigns, the gear icon next to the campaign name, the "Networks" drop-down, untick "Include Google search partners", save. To show only on Google, the only ticked box should be "Google Search Network". On Performance Max that box does not exist: what is left is account-level placement exclusions, third-party exclusion lists and the channel report. If the doubt is further upstream, that is whether paid search makes sense at all, the answer depends on conditions we have set out in when Google Ads campaigns are worth running.
One thing the August 2025 report did not fix, and it is worth saying: the list of sites serves brand safety, not performance evaluation. It shows impressions per domain, not cost or conversions per domain. Knowing you appeared on three hundred sites does not tell you whether those three hundred sites sold anything, and the decision to keep the network on still hangs on comparing two rows in the network segment, as it did in 2023. Transparency has improved on exclusion, not on measurement. These checks are part of the routine work in our Google Ads service.
Google search partners FAQs
Yes. In a new Search campaign they are included automatically. You switch them off in the campaign settings, in the Networks drop-down, by unticking Include Google search partners.
There is no public list. Since August 2025 you can see the sites your ads appeared on in the content suitability report in the report editor, but only placements that had at least five impressions in the chosen period, or at least one click, video view or conversion, are shown.
No. Google Ads states that the click-through rate of ads on search partner sites does not affect your Quality Score on Google.
There is no dedicated checkbox as there is in Search campaigns. What you have is account-level placement exclusions and, since January 2026, the SPN breakdown in the channel performance report, available on all customer IDs.
No. Search partners are websites and apps that host the ads from Google Ads campaigns. The Google Partners programme is the badge system for agencies that manage Google Ads accounts on behalf of clients.
