David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

Google have clarified their position on using images with Google AdSense.

Certain Internet Marketers have profited from telling people to put small pictures around their ads. However, the Google AdSense team have now said that this is no longer acceptable under their terms of usage. This means that if you continue to do this, your Google AdSense account could be suspended.

I would love to name names and give you URLs but I shall not. Instead I will show you pictures!
 
So what is the fuss about?

Well, Google feels that some ads are deliberately misleading users. And indeed, these are designed to. However, it encourages false clicks.

Example Number 1:



What is wrong with this set of ads? They interweave with the search results. People may click on the ads accidentally or thinking that they were proper bona fide results.

Example Number 2:



In 'outlawing' the practise in Example 1, people who have done this to their ads are tarred with the same brush. Because the images are aligned with the ads, they encourage clicking. For example, the first picture here is a raspberry. People looking for raspberry 'stuff' may click on the ad - convinced that because the picture shows a raspberry, the content of the destination site must be about raspberries.

Google has provided two further examples as part of their forum post on the change of AdSense Terms.

As a side note, you are allowed to have images on the page with the Google AdSense ads - just not lined up so as to mislead people.

Please help to spread the word as there may be a lot of unhappy publishers who have their accounts suspended if they do not take action as soon as possible.