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How OpenAdLibrary captures public ads

The collection, attribution, provenance, and no-live-click policy behind the library.

How ads are observed

OpenAdLibrary loads public web surfaces through geo-matched infrastructure, renders them in a browser, and detects served ad units. It downloads and re-encodes the creative, deduplicates matching copies, and records where and when the placement appeared.

How the advertiser is resolved

Native ads commonly route through tracking services. OpenAdLibrary follows those public redirect responses directly to the advertiser landing page and attributes the destination back to the creative. Known ad-tech and supply-side domains are filtered so an intermediary is not mislabeled as the advertiser.

No live third-party ad clicks

OpenAdLibrary does not auto-click live third-party ads. Following redirect responses directly avoids generating a paid click. Clicking is restricted to owned or test inventory, and captures are logged.

Evidence and auditability

An observation can retain the creative, captured landing page, supply chain, collection source, geography, device, and observation time. Public pages and the developer API expose only leak-safe fields.

Collection-source provenance

  • Crawl: observed on a public surface by OpenAdLibrary collection systems.
  • Official API: imported from an official platform source where available.
  • Panel or extension: labeled separately when contributed through those collection methods.