DIRECT or RESELLER? Classify the relationships
For each publisher-SSP relationship you are shown the SSP's sellers.json entry. Decide what the publisher's ads.txt line should say, and whether the line the publisher actually published would trip a TYPE_MISMATCH. Graded instantly. Signed-in attempts count toward your progress.
- PUBLISHER seller_type means the SSP sells that seller's own inventory, so the ads.txt line should be DIRECT.
- INTERMEDIARY means the seller resells others, so the line should be RESELLER.
- BOTH sells its own and resells, so either declaration is fine.
- A TYPE_MISMATCH fires when the published line disagrees with seller_type (DIRECT vs INTERMEDIARY, or RESELLER vs PUBLISHER). Confidentiality is a separate finding and never causes a type mismatch.
A premium news publisher sells its own inventory directly through PubMatic, which lists the publisher as its own seller.
A reseller network monetizes a long tail of small sites through Xandr (AppNexus). Xandr lists this seller as an intermediary that passes through third-party supply.
A publisher pasted a DIRECT line for Magnite (Rubicon), but Magnite lists this seller_id as an intermediary that resells supply from many publishers.
A media group lists OpenX as RESELLER, but OpenX lists this seller_id as the publisher of its own owned-and-operated inventory.
A large publisher both sells its own inventory and resells partner inventory through Google Ad Manager, which lists this seller as BOTH.
Index Exchange lists this seller_id as confidential: the seller_type is INTERMEDIARY but the name and domain are redacted. The publisher resells through it.
A small blog sells exclusively its own inventory through Sharethrough, which lists it as a publisher, but the blog mistakenly published a RESELLER line.
A demand-aggregation partner resells multiple publishers through Equativ (Smart AdServer), which lists the seller as an intermediary, and the publisher declared it correctly.