Content Guidelines

Note: Outbrain reserves the right to reject any content for any reason, at our sole discretion. Further, our distribution partners may choose to block specific pages or entire sources, at their sole discretion. If any advertiser gets blocked by a significant portion of the publisher network, Outbrain may choose to terminate the advertiser's campaigns.

Outbrain is a content discovery and amplification platform. We enable the promotion and dissemination of interesting, high-quality content. By default, we display either the title of the article as a link or combine it with a thumbnail image that we pull from the content.

Outbrain accepts articles, videos or slideshows that you’ve either produced yourself or curated and selected for promotion. You can promote content produced by others that may reference your work or further your goals. In our experience, readers enjoy and share content they find interesting. The more interesting your content, the more likely it is to be distributed across our network and discovered by our readers.

Acceptable content includes:

• Articles
• Blog posts
• Videos
• Slide shows
• Third-party product/service reviews
• Advertorials^*

Basic Content Guidelines:

• Content must be the primary focus of the page and lives above the fold. Calls-to-action, forms or sales copy may not be placed above the content and should not detract from the content itself.
• You cannot submit home pages, directory listings, product pages, or general navigation pages.
• Content must not spawn popup advertisements that cannot be closed, page takeovers, or other media that covers or hides portions of the content.
• Submissions may not contain exit popups or affiliate linking.
• Content must live on HTML page (no PDFs).
• Content cannot reside on Facebook (unless the login is not required to access the content), Pinterest, Flickr, or similar platform.
• The topics discussed are of interest to select groups of readers.
• Any content linked to through the Outbrain service that is not identical to the content submitted to Outbrain for preapproval shall be immediately removed.
• Content must display logo of website

Outbrain reserves the right to block content from the following categories:

• Adult
• Alcohol
• Drugs
• Tobacco
• Financial Services^*
• Gambling
• Games/Contests/Sweepstakes
• Health Services^*
• Malware
• Online pharmacies
• Weapons & Explosives

^*These categories have a higher rate of deceptive business practices and have received a significant number of complaints in the network. Therefore, these categories are subject to greater scrutiny. Submissions will be handled on a case by case basis

We also strictly prohibit content that:

• Features pornographic language or imagery
• Promotes hate, violence or discrimination
• Defames an individual, organization, or group of people
• Facilitates participation in any illegal activity (including but not limited to prostitution, the use or sale of illegal drugs, and the illegal downloading of movies or music)
• Promotes businesses that appear to be generally deceptive or misleading
• Encourages high risk investments or money making schemes with the intention of profiting off user participation in such practices
• Contains adware, malware, spyware, virus, Trojan horses or other features designed to infiltrate or damage computer systems or access personally identifiable user information without explicit user consent
• Promotes or analyzes Forex trading
• Promotes non-government approved pharmaceuticals and supplements
• Is intended to frighten or alarm the reader with information geared toward persuading the reader to take a specific action

Outbrain reserves the right to reject content for the following quality and tonality infractions:

• Grammatical errors
  • Improper spelling
  • Incorrect language use
  • Incoherent passages or structure
  • Improper use of capitalization
• Lack of authenticity
  • Illustrates a lack of understanding of the intended subject matter
  • Misleads or deceives
  • Is overly self-promotional or advertorial*
  • Possesses no useful information or entertainment value
• Lack of timeliness
  • News content older than 14 days cannot be added to our network.
  • Other forms of content can be added or rejected at Outbrain’s discretion based on timeliness.
• Poor Design
  • Grainy images
  • Graphically violent or pornographic imagery
  • Illegible fonts
  • Dark copy on dark backgrounds or light copy on light backgrounds
• Inaccurate or Misleading Headlines
  • Does not depict landing page content
  • Exaggerates or embellishes landing page content
• Calls-to-Action in Headlines
  • Registration pleas
  • Prize offers
  • Promotions or sales
  • Urges customer calls or emails
  • Shocking or sensational
• SEO-Focused Content
  • Link-backs to low-quality content to boost SEO
  • Hidden text
  • Hidden links

For more ideas on working with Outbrain, check out our blog post on How Headline Length Impacts Engagement

^*The scoop on advertorial / sponsored content:

We accept some forms of advertorial and sponsored content. If you are submitting a third-party review, content that endorses a product or service or testimonials, they must represent the true and honest opinion of a real person who is not affiliated with you, or whose connection to you is clearly and conspicuously disclosed. Testimonials may not contain claims that you cannot substantiate.

Advertorial content we will accept includes high-quality content produced with the aim of engaging audiences through the quality of the material. In these instances, ownership of the content is absolutely clearly disclosed and not misleading in any way, and there is independent entertainment or informational value outside of just information about the brand/product. Content must not employ misleading techniques, including but not limited to:

• Using trademarks/logos of known brands without their express permission
• Hosting content on a domain that misleads users about its origination
• Using fake comments that appear to be from real individuals