While setting up an SEM (Adwords) campaign for one of our clients, we found that the ads were 'pending review' for a long time. When the status did change, it was to 'disapproved'.

Why? Because the client's homepage triggered off a popup. Some poring over the Adwords Policies confirmed that popups can, indeed, lead to disapproval.

Incidentally, we didnt have that issue on Yahoo! Search Marketing, where approval was prompt.

This confirms, once again, that what we've merely considered bad-practices can have concrete consequences. With a medium like Google where everything is measurable, that's not too surprising, is it?

So, what do you do if you're in this situation? If the client isnt quite willing to take the popup off, you could set a different landing page on the site - one that doesnt trigger off a popup.

Does a popup on site (but not on landing page) lead to a lower quality score? We'll have to watch that campaign and find out.  If I were Google, and wanted to dissuade popups, that would be a good way of doing so.