If we had to pick our biggest frustration with Google AdWords, it would be the inconsistency in ad approvals. It’s not that the ad policies are ambiguous or incomplete, but the review process itself can sometimes break down and result in lengthy delays before ads are enabled to run on Google.com and the Google Display Network.

But before we judge too harshly, we have to consider the monumental effort involved in operating a secure, safe advertising environment. Google usually doesn’t share ad policy and review data, but a recent Inside AdWords blog post revealed that 224,000,000 “bad ads” were disapproved that could have infected users’ computers with malware, stolen personal info, or sold counterfeit goods. More than 889,000 “bad advertisers” were banned from AdWords in 2012.

Think that’s a lot? The 224,000,000 bad ads is supposedly a 50% decrease from 2011!

So the next time we get frustrated with Google for delaying an ad review, we’ll try to cut them a little slack (but not too much). After all, a few bad apples shouldn’t ruin it for the rest of us.

Here’s an deceptively simple infographic with some more stats:

AdWords Ad Review Infographic