7_Driver - 8:19 pm on Jul 29, 2004 (gmt 0)

It is surprising that Google will approve you for one site, and then let you add adsense to any others you might own.

Obviously it cuts down their workload - but it does invite people to create one half-decent site and truckloads of rubbish.

The site you refer to was absolutely blatant nonsense (every page identical apart from the keywords) - and I'd be surprised if Google didn't remove it if it was reported to them.

The one thing that you COULD learn from it was that placement of an Adsense skyscraper in the left-hand column. I'm quite tempted to test that myself, below my actual site navigation:

The left-hand column is just a place users are conditioned to want to click - bound to get a good CTR there. Changing the colour to match that column is no different to choosing a white background and no border when putting the adsense in your body copy - and LOADS of people do that.

(Of course site X took it to extremes by not bothering with site navigation at all! - Fine for a "made for Adsense / affiliate" site - but no use for sites trying to build a loyal following of users).

[edited by: 7_Driver at 8:25 pm (utc) on July 29, 2004]