Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I aim this at certian areas for example escorts or contacts etc to be a little specific. No pictures.
I see adwords on these topics so why not adsense.
Surely this has been talked about before, so care to share any threads?
Cheers
<added>
I must stress, I have a good idea of what what i think crosses the line in general terms, but that is of little importance. Google's opnion is the law in terms of this query. How can I clarify the law, i dont wish to burn an account by misinterpretting it
Please dont get specific :)
</added>
[edited by: ukgimp at 2:03 pm (utc) on Aug. 9, 2004]
"Pornography, adult, or mature content"
I don't think there is anything defined in more detail than this.
I also think that this leaves some wide areas that are open to interpretation as you say. I would also add 'personal ads', 'dating sites' and 'lingerie' to the list of grey areas.
I was advised to take Adsense off that page in particular, though it does run on the rest of the site pages. This "adult" page is not prominently linked from the site nav and is only linked to from one page. I don't view the page as "adult" and the directories who link to me obviously don't - but it definitely was a gray area, so I figured why risk it.
[edited by: Jenstar at 7:00 pm (utc) on Aug. 9, 2004]
[edit reason] No specific keywords, please, as per TOS [/edit]
How daft, what about sport bras? :)
A research paper on sexually enhancing drugs is for the most part educational and will not be considered "adult". Focus on the intention.
Their answer was non-commital, basically saying that they'd have to see the website in order to make a determination.
Maybe if you created the pages without AdSense, then emailed them with the URLs, they'd give you a ruling, but I don't think they are going to commit themselves to anything more than vague terms like "mature content", which they can then interpret as they wish.
Apologies to Matt (but I'm sure you'll appreciate the feedback):
Google's Safe Search feature coupled to AdWords is a great example contradiction. I just did a search for lingerie, with Safe Search in Strict Mode, and no natural listings came up:
No standard web pages containing all your search terms were found.
To the right, in AdWords, there are a bunch of lingerie ads. Is lingerie taboo for Safe Surf, but not taboo enough to be filtered for the ads? What gives?
What I'm really trying to say is...
My concern is that Google should have procedures in place for not unilaterally suspending accounts for true gray area violations of the rule.
Another test would be to put the content up on a test page, before launching it live (with links pointing to the page). Since all AdSense ads are put through a check for "family friendliness" first, if you see ads exactly targeted to the same subject your page is about, you are probably safe to be running AdSense on those pages.
That said, I have seen AdSense running on all manner pages that could not be considered "family friendly" by ANY stretch of the imagination. So there doesn't seem to be a trigger in AdSense that alerts them if specific adult keywords are on pages running AdSense, but it must be a case of needing someone to report the publisher to AdSense before they are aware of the ads on adult content pages.
1. You certify that you are 13 years of age or over. All those individuals under 13 years of age will need a full release form from their parents before posting any messages. This is in compliance with the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act of 2000 (COPPA)."
8. Links to adult content, pages with links to adult content, near adult content (including model and swimsuit sites), or messages describing anything against the law will be removed as soon as possible. Any discussion of those are off topic.
This is a potentially valuable discussion but we are skirting the edges of our TOS. I've asked Jenstar to "nuke on sight" any post that is "playing games" in her opinion. If you want to contribute, please phrase your remarks so that NO ONE would find fault with them if they were made in the presence of children.
And TIA for your cooperation. :)
The 'Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia' item can also cause confusion.
For example Qat is a legal drug in the UK and many areas of the arab world but is illegal in the US - so could be construed as an illicit drug by Google Adsense - since Google is a US based corporation. However looking at this a different way Whisky is a legal drug in the US, but is illegal in many parts of the Arab world yet I would doubt that Google Adsense would stop you using Adsense on a page with Whisky as a topic.
The real problem that I think needs addressing is that the Adsense Program Policies leave a lot to intepretation by the website owner, much of which can be interpreted in a different way dependent on the webmasters cultural background. Given that the Adsense program is available internationally Google maybe needs to address certain issues in a little more detail than is currently available.
I don't know if Google would go along with it, but it seems pretty comprehensive to me.
Just as my posts seem to get deleted by the mods "more than usual", the line you ask about is always shifting.
But they are on board
Anyhow I got a mail back today.
The answer was anything that was not family safe. So equally as vague :)
The suggestion was to try it an see. The proble here is that you may not wish to try it and see on an existing account that may be doing well elsewhere.
You wont want your whole ad network removed because of one infringement.
So is there an appeal section or do you get nuked.
zeus;)
Yes, some are scandalous, but nevertheless are seen by kids every day on the 5 O'clock network news.
When some of the stories heat up, we routinely get over 10,000 impressions/hr., so G is obviously leaving a lot of money on the table by being the morals police.
-maybe things will change after the IPO.
Steve
Anyhow I got a mail back today.The answer was anything that was not family safe.
That's kind of a strange reply from them.
I had a sitaution where I had a "family safe" event listing on a page.
It trigerred Adsense ads I thought were not quite family safe.
Answer from Google? Basically, there's nothing you can do about it except go in and block them one by one.
Appears G answers in whichever way gives them less work and less responsibilty.
It trigerred Adsense ads I thought were not quite family safe. Answer from Google? Basically, there's nothing you can do about it except go in and block them one by one.
I had an adult oriented ad (for adult website hosting) show up on one of my "family safe" sites. I let AdSense know that it some how slipped through, they confirmed it should never have appeared in AdSense and removed the ad from the AdSense rotation. So they must have some sort of guidelines of what is permitted and what is not, at least as far as the advertisers go.
With the actual AdSense sites, it could come down to fuzzy guidelines, and where the individual quality control person feels the line is drawn. Unless there are very clear and concise guidelines (which there very well could be, but which are not made public) it could be very much open to interpretation, the same way many of the other policies are open to interpretation.
Possibly ask a "friend/colleague" to open a new account?
Also, as far as "search safe" is concerned, I have a page on my website which I would call as adult.
But when I search for a less competitive term on google, it does show up, even if the "safe search" is on. Though, while doing safe search, the results were "357" and otherwise it was 9970 ..Any comments..So should we assume that even safe search is not safe as far as adsense is concerned?
Thanks...
Oh yes I thave thought of this as I am sure have many. I suppose this is a downside of G being so vague. Oh well, time to pick up the phone :)
But when I search for a less competitive term on google, it does show up, even if the "safe search" is on. Though, while doing safe search, the results were "357" and otherwise it was 9970
I also wondered about this, and played with the search filters. When looking at "strict" vs the others, I really didn't see a strong correlation between AdSense and Google search.
In other words, I do not believe AdSense and G Search filter are using the same rulesets. In my experience, AdSense is much more sensitive to specific stop words.
I had an adult oriented ad (for adult website hosting) show up on one of my "family safe" sites. I let AdSense know that it some how slipped through, they confirmed it should never have appeared in AdSense and removed the ad from the AdSense rotation. So they must have some sort of guidelines of what is permitted and what is not, at least as far as the advertisers go.
While searching on Google, I found this ad (proposing explicit sexuality content):
<snip>
I hope to never see such an ad on my Web site adsense! :-/
[edited by: Jenstar at 3:56 pm (utc) on Aug. 17, 2004]
[edit reason] No URLs as per TOS [/edit]
Anything that appeals to sexual senses can be deemed as adult. That is your best indicator.
Umm...if that were the definition, a lot of news sites couldn't run Adsense.
What's interesting is that you can advertise a porn site with Adwords, but you can't run it on porn sites.
