blocking content on your web pages

Adsense mail :(

[Mentat]

I've just got this mail:

<paraphrase by moderator>We have received feedback from visitors that your AdSense is appearing to block content on your web pages. You need to update the HTML so this problem is corrected. Please reply to let us know when the changes are made, so we can review it.</paraphrase>

I think this is automated mail message.
The adsense banners are not obstructive on my site, i dont ecourage people to click on the banneres in any way, or worse force them to click :(
I even have a small Clickthrough rate (~1%)..

I try hard to be compliant to the program's policy.

I really dont know what to change!
I have ~ 100 000 unique visitors/day ...

What to do? What to do?

[edited by: Jenstar at 8:15 am (utc) on Mar. 27, 2004]
[edit reason] Sorry, no email quotes please, as per TOS [/edit]

[digitalv]

I suggest taking a look at your site using a couple of different browsers and screen resolutions, just to see if there is any possible way there is any truth to the e-mail you received.

If so ... you'll clearly be able to see what to do to correct it. And if not, ask Google what the heck they're talking about :)

[robho]

I had a similar message a few months back about ads blocking content on the site. It was shortly after I had changed an ad to one of the square blocks (instead of a skyscraper).

For a user with a 640-pixel wide VGA screen and enlarged fonts, allowing for borders, graphics etc, it was indeed possible for there to be very little screen space left alongside the ad (it didn't actually cover content, just made the column very thin). I switched it back, no more complaints.

[jomaxx]

What do you mean by "not obstructive"? Are they in front of your site content or not? Have you tested your site in different browsers? Do you have the AdSense code in plain HTML, or is it contained in an IFRAME or a DIV?

[Mentat]

I've tried my site using Opera 6.01, Firebird and IE 6.x

It's OK, but I really hate people that are still using 800*600.

My site is designed for 1024 px resolution.
To much content to fit in a 800*600 px page...

20% of my users are using 800*600 smaller resolutions.

My ads are positioned on the top of the site...

Banners are in separated areas, not over the content or inside the content.

Stupid visitors :@

[robho]

I've tried my site using Opera 6.01, Firebird and IE 6.x

Have you tried it with a very narrow window (i.e. not fullscreen)? Some people would still be viewing it on VGA, and an increasing number on Pocket PC, phones, etc.

[Mentat]

Very narrow window? Why?

I cannot make my site compliat for resolutins like 640, 800 or PocketPC.
This is crazy.

I tryed in 800*600 and the ads are not obstructive in a significant way for the content.
As i said the banners are not included in the text!

In any situation, for any of us, even if we try hard, we cannot please 100% of our visitors.
If I please 80% of them, i think it's ok.

My users are using IE ~ 88%

I cannot try 640 resolution; my monitor cannot work that low... :D

[jomaxx]

Mentat, can AdSense ads end up on top of other content OR NOT? If so, then you have a problem. On my site, if the window gets too small you end up with side-scrolling, but the ads don't block anything.

P.S. Some people do surf at 640x480, and lots of other people don't keep their browser windows open fullscreen.

[Mentat]

I dont think that they are obstructive for the content.

[jomaxx]

English is my first language but I have no idea what that means.

[ken_b]

we cannot please 100% of our visitors.

Perhaps not, but in this case it is pleasing Google that may matter more than what you, or your other visitors, think.

[Mentat]

English is my first language but I have no idea what that means.

You mean the google message or my PM for you?

[jomaxx]

Actually I was referring to "obstructive for the content." I was trying to get you to state plainly that you don't use any tricks to place the ads and that there's no way the ads could block any other content.

Anyway after looking at the URL you mailed to me, I don't see what the complaint could be about. The pages seem to render fine in Nescape and MSIE. No matter how small the window got, the ads didn't block anything or behave unusually for me.

[Birdman]

>>> I really hate people that are still using 800*600.

>>> Stupid visitors :@

I can't help but laugh at those comments. While you hate those 800*600 visitors and continue to shun them I will take them all day long.

[jomaxx]

You know what? I wonder if people are looking at the AdSense rectangle specifically in your news articles. The way the text flows around it, I wonder if people are thinking that the ad is covering up part of the article?

For that matter, on those pages AdSense is in a DIV styled by CSS. I wonder if an incompatibility with some browser version is causing the wraparound to not work, and for the text to flow underneath instead.

[bird]

Very narrow window? Why?

Because opening one single browser window to the full width of my 21" monitor would be an insane waste of screen real estate. Consequently, I have two windows in portrait format next to each other, which means that both are less than 600 pixels wide. If your site forces me to scroll horizontally because of that, then I'll go shop with the competition.

[jonknee]

Mac users hardly ever browse at full screen. The Mac OS has few apps that default to taking up the full screen, so we're not used to it.

Mess around with the size a bit and see if you can duplicate a problem. Otherwise ask Google for more info.

[annej]

mentat,

Do you use any CSS? I was having problems with my side column overlapping the text. It meant the ads were in the way of some of the article. I fixed it somehow, but I can't remember what I did.

I know, big help. But at least you might look at that possibility.

[Mentat]

Ofcourse i'm using css, but i dont see how this is interfering with the position of the ads.

I'll work on my news pages.

I've mailed google asking for more info about the problem

[blaze]

So this is what it takes to get someone to lose their adsense .. just complain to Google from a few proxy ip addresses? yeeesh.

[yump]

DHTML? Visibilities.
Sorry ignore. Someone's already mentioned.

[annej]

In my case I must not have had my css set just right and when the page was minimized the ads slid over the article text. I had to really minimize though. But there are people who have a small screen then have their favorites on the side so their browser screen comes out really small. Why they do this I don't know, but it may have been someone like that who complained.

Of course now that I have it fixed they have to scroll sidedways to see all the page. You can't make it work for everyone it seems.

[Sharper]

I've gotten the same email twice in the past. Both times I responded (the first time in confusion, because I couldn't figure out how it could happen, having tested in what I considered all common browser version/OS/resolution combinations) and got a response that they were just informing me so I could better serve visitors and that since it wasn't a TOS violation, they weren't going to care about it themselves.

My issue is that on many of my sites, with the skyscraper on the right-hand side, if you window your browser and shrink the horizontal size down to the point where IE adds a horizontal scroll-bar, some weird bug causes the Adsense ads to start overlaying part of the content while the rest is accessible via a bottom scroll bar. The layout I have is a "flowing" one that works fine until you shrink it pretty small. I don't know what prompts IE to stop flowing and add the horizontal scroll. I've tested with removing any size indication at all within the content (no images, no forms, no pixel specifications, nothing)and it simply refuses to flow beyond a certain minimum width.

I haven't been able to figure out how to change things so that the overlap doesn't happen and can't image that there are that many windows/ie users that surf with such narrow windows (site flows fine on PDAs/Cell Phones, whatever).

Right now, with such a small number of affected users, I've just decided to stop worrying about it, because I'm pretty sure at this point that it's an IE DIV/CSS bug when you try to combine floated page elements with fixed page elements.

Try it on your own pages with adsense and see if it does the same thing at ridiculously small horizonal resolutions.

[annej]

I've looked back and am trying to remember what I did to stop the overlap. It might have been that I set a firm left margin for the main area so it wouldn't flow under the side margin.

.mainspace {
margin-left: 145px;
}

I know I tried all sorts of things and something did it as I get no overlap anymore no matter how narrow I make the browser screen.

[colinf]

>>>>I can't help but laugh at those comments. While you hate those 800*600 visitors and continue to shun them I will take them all day long.<<<<<

Got that right Birdman.

cf

[Mentat]

Hmmm it might be :(
I've contacted google and now i'm waiting for the answer...

[rainmakerpsi]

you could get a java script to redirect people running low resolution pages to a differnt page which clearly showed the AdSense Ad seperate from the content. Differnt Resolutions is a tricky thing.