Google recently announced that it has stopped taking paid ads for payday loans. Facebook stopped taking payday loans about a year ago. This is a pretty significant development.  While you can still find payday loans online through organic searches, there will no longer be any “above the fold” (the ads that show on the top and right-hand side of a search results page )will not show advertisements for them. The google ads for payday loans helped legitimize an industry which really should be left in the shadows of the black market. It is great to see them go.

The decision is the first time Google has announced a total ban on ads for a broad category of financial products. Previous blanket bans had only been put in place to stop gun, drug, explosive and sex selling guns, explosives and drugs, and limited those that are sexually explicit or graphic in nature Google advertising does not come cheap