Google AdSense Conflicting Statements
Google AdSense has stated that you should not do the following:
1) Put pictures next to ads, since it may be misleading to visitors, and result in not-so-valid clicks.
2) Make sure your ads stand out from your content, so visitors are not duped into clicking them by accident, resulting in MORE no-so-valid clicks.
And then, today, on the Google AdSense blog (http://adsense.blogspot.com/) they have the following article: Building With AdSense (http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/03/building-with-adsense.html)
Ok, so they site is nice, OK, whatever. I'll probably be back to browse through the various projects they have listed there.
My point of contention is as follows: They included a link to the site owners wifes website, and from the look of it she is clearly in violation of both of the above guidelines.
Now, I know, some may argue "Hey! Maybe she is a premium publisher, who Google lets break the rules!" and I have seen sites like that. But they are usually larger (say something like About.com) sites, with higher volumes. Actually, I have no idea what the site traffic volume is for her site, so I'll bite my tongue here.
When an AdSense publisher sees a site like hers, they can think one of two ways:
1) I can do that too!
2) I can't do that because my site/traffic sucks.
You either have to be negligent of the TOS, or feel inferior.
The site does good, at least that is how I feel, by not having ads on the front page:
And the sub-pages are laid out nicely, except for the clearly not right ad layout:
Misleading or artistically laid out? You tell me. They are making money, that's for sure. I know WHEN I put up a site like this, I will expect Google to be on-board with it also. It's only fair.
Maybe Google needs to issue a disclaimer graphic for sites like this: "I AM GOOGLE AND I APPROVE THIS WEBSITE AD PLACEMENT." :-)
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