Yes, doctors can run Google Ads in Australia. But your ads have to pass 2 separate sets of rules, and passing one tells you nothing about the other. Google checks its own ad policy. AHPRA, the body behind the health ad rules, enforces Section 133 of the National Law. The maximum penalty there is $60,000 for a person and $120,000 for a company. So Google's approval does not mean your ad follows the law. Section 133(2) also says a business that only prints or publishes someone else's ad does not commit the offence. That means the same section that protects Google leaves you exposed.
Can doctors run Google Ads in Australia?
Yes. Registered health practitioners are allowed to use paid search.
It is also the channel where clinics get into trouble fastest. The rules are the same as anywhere else. The problem is that the ads are so short.
A headline gives you 30 characters. There is no room for a careful qualifier. There is no room for the sentence that would have made the claim safe. So the copywriter cuts the careful part and keeps the promise. And the promise is the part Section 133 cares about.
Your website has room to be careful, but your ad has very little.
Why does Google approving your ad not make it compliant?
Google is checking your ad against a different set of rules.
Google reviews your ad against the Google Ads policies. Those are business rules that a private company wrote for a global platform. They are real and Google enforces them. If your ad breaks them, Google turns it down.
AHPRA enforces Section 133 of the National Law. That is the Australian law that sets the ad rules for health practitioners, and breaking it is a criminal offence.
The two tests overlap in places, but they are different tests. Your ad can sail through Google's review and still break Section 133 on the day it goes live.
| The question | Google's policy | Section 133 |
|---|---|---|
| Who wrote the rule. | Google, as a private platform. | Australian parliaments, as law. |
| What happens if you fail. | Google turns down the ad or suspends the account. | You can be prosecuted, with a maximum penalty of $60,000 for a person and $120,000 for a company. |
| Can you use a patient review. | Usually yes, and Google has ad formats built to show ratings. | No. Testimonials about the service or business are banned outright. |
| Can you say you are the top clinic in the area. | Google asks you to back up claims like that. | It counts as misleading unless you can prove it, and almost nobody can. |
| Who gets penalised | The account holder | The person advertising the service. Section 133(2) excuses whoever only publishes it. |
Read the last row again. Section 133(2) says a person does not commit the offence just because their business prints or publishes someone else's ad. Google publishes your ad as part of its business. You are the one who wrote it.
What does Google itself ban for ads targeting Australia?
Google's Healthcare and medicines policy has rules for each country, and Australia has its own set. Three of them catch clinics.
Prescription drug terms. Google says ads aimed at Australia cannot use prescription drug terms in the ad or where it leads. Read the second half of that again. The place your ad leads to is your landing page. So a safe headline that points to a page naming the drug still fails.
Certification for telehealth and online pharmacy. Google limits ads for online prescribing, dispensing and the sale of prescription drugs. Businesses need Google certification to run those ads. In Australia, that goes through LegitScript's Healthcare Merchant Certification Program.
Addiction services. In Australia, Google only lets government bodies promote drug and alcohol addiction recovery services. A private clinic cannot advertise them on Google here at all.
Watch one detail, because people will misread it. In April 2026 Google updated the policy. It now lets certified telehealth providers promote prescription drug services. That change was for New Zealand. It did not extend to Australia.
Google's policy pages are the ones that count, and Google changes them on its own schedule. Check the rules for your country before you build a campaign, rather than after Google turns it down.
What does Section 133 ban, word for word?
The section is short. It is worth reading in full once, because every paid search mistake falls under one of these 5 parts.
In plain words, the law says you must not advertise a health service, or a business that provides one, in a way that does any of these things:
- "is false, misleading or deceptive or is likely to be misleading or deceptive." So you cannot mislead people.
- "offers a gift, discount or other inducement to attract a person to use the service or the business, unless the advertisement also states the terms and conditions of the offer." So every deal needs its terms beside it.
- "uses testimonials or purported testimonials about the service or business." So you cannot use patient reviews, real or made up.
- "creates an unreasonable expectation of beneficial treatment." So you cannot raise false hopes about results.
- "directly or indirectly encourages the indiscriminate or unnecessary use of regulated health services." So you cannot push people into care they do not need.
The maximum penalty sits right under it. For a person, it is $60,000. For a company, it is $120,000. Each amount applies per offence.
Those figures are current, and that is why a lot of advice online is wrong. A change to the law in 2022 raised them from $5,000 and $10,000. Since July 2024, the higher amounts apply in every state and territory. Plenty of guides still quote the old numbers. That makes the risk look 12 times smaller than it really is.
Source: "Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (Queensland)", Section 133, current as at 10 April 2026, read against AHPRA's statement of the maximums before 2022. The bars are drawn to scale against the $120,000 maximum. These are the most a court can order per offence. They are not typical outcomes.
Which parts of a Google Ads account can breach Section 133?
More parts than most practices expect. Section 133 covers all your advertising. A Google ad is built from several pieces, and different people control them.
| Part of the account | Why it can breach |
|---|---|
| Headlines and descriptions | This is where promises about results live. Thirty characters leaves no room for the careful line that would have made the claim safe. |
| Sitelinks and callouts | They are short by design. People often write them once and never check them again. They show beside your ad as part of it. |
| Rating and review extensions. | Star ratings and pulled review text count as testimonials. Section 133(1)(c) bans testimonials about the service. |
| Promotion extensions | A discount without its terms is exactly what part (b) describes. |
| Automatically created assets | Google can write headlines from your landing page. If the page claims too much, the ad copies it, and nobody signs it off. |
| The landing page | Google's Australian rule already reaches the page your ad leads to. Section 133 reaches your whole site. |
The last two are the ones that catch careful practices. You can write 5 safe headlines and still have Google write a sixth for you.
Our view is that rating extensions are the sharpest risk on the list. They are a setting, so nobody writes them, and nobody checks them. That is our own reading, and AHPRA has not published a ruling on it. The safe course is to treat any star rating you switch on as something you chose and placed. That is the practical test for a testimonial. You can read more about where that line sits in our piece on what counts as a testimonial under AHPRA.
What should the ad copy say instead?
The fix is almost always the same. Swap the promise about the result for a fact about your service.
| Do not run this | Run this | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Brisbane's best GP clinic. | GP clinic in Brisbane CBD, bulk billing for concession card holders. | A claim to be the top clinic, which you cannot prove, reads as misleading. A billing fact can be checked. Naming who qualifies stops it turning into a promise to everyone. |
| Rated 4.9 by our patients. | Open 7 days, appointments from 7am. | A rating counts as a testimonial. Opening hours are just a fact. |
| Pain gone in one session. | Assessment and treatment plan on your first visit. | A promise about results raises false hopes. A description of the visit simply tells people what happens. |
| Free skin check, book now. | Skin check, no gap for eligible patients. Conditions apply, see the page. | You can offer a deal only when the terms go with it. |
| Ask us about [drug brand name]. | Talk to a doctor about your treatment options. | In Australia, prescription drug terms are barred from the ad and from the page it leads to. |
The safe versions are just as strong. They are more specific, and specific copy is what actually turns a search into a booking. We made that case in full in why compliant copy is not boring.
Who is liable if an agency built the account?
You can both be liable. Section 133 says a person must not advertise a health service in the banned ways. It does not limit that to registered practitioners. So it covers your practice, the company that owns it and the agency writing the copy.
The one party it does not cover is the platform. Subsection (2) is clear. A person does not commit the offence just because their business prints or publishes someone else's ad. That protects the publisher, and Google sits right inside it.
So having someone else manage the account does not take the risk off you. If you want to test whether your agency understands any of this, we wrote the 5-minute version in how to tell your agency does not understand AHPRA. If a complaint has already landed, we explain the process in what happens when someone reports your clinic's advertising.
What should a practice check this week?
Check these 6 things. They take about an hour.
- Export every live headline, description, sitelink and callout, and read them as one list. Most practices have never seen them together.
- Turn off automatically created assets until someone has read what they produce.
- Check if rating or review extensions are switched on.
- Open every landing page your ads point to. Check it against the same 5 parts of the law.
- Search your own ad copy and landing pages for prescription drug names.
- Put the terms on the same page as any offer, rather than one click away.
Your clinic may also want to show up in the free search results and in AI answers. The rules stay the same there, but the tactics change. Start with SEO for doctors and the AHPRA advertising guidelines in 2026.
The good news is that paid search is the easiest channel to fix. You can change every ad in an afternoon. Your website takes longer, which is why it is usually the part that has been wrong for years.
