What Google finds acceptable on a site?

Important observations

[Hubbard]

Would Google allow Adsense on a site with:

1. Criticism of religious fundamentalism

2. Criticism of politics

3. Social commentary

4. Sexual content, gossip, swearing

According to the Agreement the answer is no to some of the above. Yet surfing the net one finds Adsense on sites advocating Islamic supremacy or celebrity sites with naked imagery, defamatory gossip and swearing.

Likewise Google says no Adsense for sites with Kontera or Intellitxt. Surfing around yet again reveals sites with those contextual ad systems alongside Adsense.

The theory here is that Google will turn a blind eye to any sites with high enough traffic. Is this correct?

[europeforvisitors]

The theory here is that Google will turn a blind eye to any sites with high enough traffic. Is this correct?

No, but after reviewing a publisher with high enough traffic, it might allow that publisher to be a "premium partner" that's exempt from some of the boilerplate rules.

[nonni]

>> Likewise Google says no Adsense for sites with Kontera or Intellitxt. Surfing around yet again reveals sites with those contextual ad systems alongside Adsense.

You might be able to get away with it for a while. And if and when they become aware of your violation, they could close your account and ban you for life.

Adsense is generally ok for religious and political sites, provided they meet all other criteria, which can be a grey area. It doesn't pay much for these topics (no 'buy our defundamentalizer chamber' ads), but if that is your passion, go for it. And look into other options (text link ads, blog ads, etc).

[jomaxx]

"Surfing around" can yield sites that are breaking the rules and will probably be kicked out sooner or later. But using what other sites appear to get away with as a model for what is actually allowed would be foolish.

The theory here is that Google will turn a blind eye to any sites with high enough traffic.

Highly doubtful. More likely the opposite is true, that the more you make and the more traffic you get, the more spot-checks your site will tend to get from AdSense support.

[david_uk]

Irrespective of the TOS question (ask Google), I'd be interested to see what bizarre and whacky ads the deranged bot would decide to show:-

1. Criticism of religious fundamentalism

Best 4 religious fundamentalists websites - click here

New and used religious fundamentalists

A lot of god-bothering ads that are totally at odds with the text

2. Criticism of politics

Best 4 politics websites - click here

New and used politicians

Lots of ads for various political organisations and parties - all being hammered by the text

3. Social commentary

I'd imagine they would have problems with this ;) New and used social commentary maybe?

4. Sexual content, gossip, swearing

As above really!

[Hubbard]

The most famous example is that celebrity gossip site with the pink theme run by a gay guy in Hollywood who hangs around with Paris Hilton. Here we have a site with daily sexual content, swearing, defamation and unsubstantiated gossip. The guy also boasted to a New York social site in an argument that he makes a a lot of money doing what he does. This all must be known to Google and his ads are standard ads not the kind styled by premium publishers. He's getting away with it somehow.

[humblebeginnings]

Best 4 religious fundamentalists websites - click here

New and used religious fundamentalists

;-);-);-)

David, you made my day!
By far the funniest post in a long time.
Thanks for a very good laugh!

[jomaxx]

If something is clearly against the TOS, definitely report them. Beyond that there's no point resenting what others are supposedly "getting away with".

[malachite]

David, great post.

I'd be interested to see what bizarre and whacky ads the deranged bot would decide to show ...

I've seen some whacky ones today.

I recently stuffed up and published the intro text of an article I'd forgotten Adsense didn't like to the site's frontpage. Click "read more" to go to the article itself, and it displays perfectly normal ads for the site's topic. (The article is about new uses for former jails).

So the frontpage is currently not displaying adsense at all, as "jail" seems to be a stop word. But... a brief check this morning to see whether ads had returned revealed an adblock full of ads for capital punishment.

Irrespective of the pros/cons of capital punishment, I wouldn't have thought Google would allow ads promoting such a thing?! Surely ads for the various methods thereof are more gory than a converted jail :o

[mlduclos]

No, but after reviewing a publisher with high enough traffic, it might allow that publisher to be a "premium partner" that's exempt from some of the boilerplate rules.

Whats "enough traffic" here? They consider variations in each country or its global?

[europeforvisitors]

Google says that sites with more than 20 million page views a month may be eligible for premium service. See:

[google.com...]