5-star rating of adsense ads

Can this be with TOS?

[sailorjwd]

I just stumbled across a site that is a nicely layed out directory scraper site.

Embedded within the directory listings are blocks of 4-up adsense ads.

Each individual ad has a 5-star rating to the left side, same as the directory listings do.

The first ad always has a 5-star rating.

I bet this doubles his EPC.

Has anyone seen this, used it, or think its within TOS?

[Rodney]

doesn't seem like it would be within the TOS, but who knows if they have worked out some special arrangement with Google.

[sailorjwd]

I just requested a 'special arrangement' too.

[Jon_King]

I've seen that star stuff also. Man that's a tough one, seems a bit scummy to me, but G lets plenty of that kind of thing slide.

[sailorjwd]

A majority of clickers don't have a clue what they are clicking on anyway. So why not have them click on the #1 ad each time.

Apparently that top ad is rated #1 by Google :-)

[sailorjwd]

I guess i got someone in trouble.

I got a response from google and they say using the 5-star rating is a no-no. And they would forward my example to the guys with the dark sunglasses.

The site was running up my adwords campaign.

[david_uk]

I guess i got someone in trouble. I got a response from google and they say using the 5-star rating is a no-no. And they would forward my example to the guys with the dark sunglasses.

I'd be interested to see what G do - keep an eye on the site and please report back. I bet that they get a warning and will be in compliance quite soon.

[photo200]

Shame on you Sailor :)
That guy was trying to make living.
Now he will be living in a refrigerator carton box and
cursing on you. :)

I don't know guys - but it seems not really white hat
to jail someone. But it is only my personal opinion.

[sailorjwd]

I only asked if I could use the same scheme.

He's an adwords advertiser too so I bet he just gets a warning.

I don't seek out people to get banned. But now that we can exclude sites on adwords I am looking at sites more.

I've given up on adwords in the chinese market and did as incredibill suggested 'all countries and then remove China'. Almost every click I get from a chinese site is invalid crappola.

[moneyraker]

I'm not sure if I understood it correctly, but do adwords advertisers really get more tolerance from G? I'd be one too if that would assure me of not being unceremoniously kicked out of Adsense without due process. Just asking...

[hunderdown]

photo, sailor needs to make a living too. That site was generating questionable clicks that were eating SAILOR's money.

[martinibuster]

I know exactly the site you're talking about, and to me it looks questionable, too. If I were you, I would not emulate that.

[photo200]

Shure guys, I understand.

But there are two but - those site spendig their own traffic (not yours - they did not steal it from you and me)
And second - I just said - I would not report that to G and sailor already explained - he just ask G possibility to use that trick on his site.

[hunderdown]

sailor was talking from the point of view of being an ADWORDs advertiser. His ads were showing on that site. Frankly, I think he has a right to report such sites, as an advertiser. Whether he did that directly (that site is using tricks), or put it in the form of a question (can I do what that site is doing?) doesn't matter, so far as I am concerned. He wasn't going after the competition.

[sailorjwd]

The ads and stars are still there.

Moneyraker,

I can only assume that if you are providing google with big bucks via adwords and Adsense that Google would take a close look at your site/history before they would kill your account - as compared to someone making $100 per month for Google.

Since I've started making and spending larger amounts with google I notice responses I get from support are a lot more informational/personal, rarely do I get a canned response. Somewhat special treatment makes business sense.

[spaceylacie]

The guy will probably just get a warning. I got 2 warnings when I first started Adsense. I don't run Adwords. When I asked how long I had to fix the problem(don't remember if this was 1st or 2nd warning), they said, "just as soon as you can".

[ncreegan]

When I first joined AS I was pretty heavily violating the TOS by dissecting the AS code and displaying my ads in a custom format. I was so used to working with search feeds that encouraged that sort of thing I didn't even bother to ask. About a month later I received a very polite e-mail informing me of the TOS and requesting that a use a standard format.

I spent a few thousand a month on adwords, but I doubt it had much to do with it... seems to depend more on the mood of whoever noticies the violation.

[spaceylacie]

From a business perspective, it's probably less the mood they are in and more about how much money you are making for them.

If I remember correctly, my first violation was for inviting people to click on the ads. This is something that was pre-programmed into my site template, which was set up to serve 3 ad positions, not necessarily for Google ads.

The second violiation, was for serving 3 ad positions on the site. Back then, you could only have one. This is the one I wrote back and complained about because it meant editing 100s of pages that I had just finished manually editing. I told them it would take me a while to go back and undo everything I had just done. I also recommended that they allow more ad positions, I guess I'm not the only one who requested this because they listened and changed policy about a month later. Then, I went back and edited all the pages... again.

[zulufox]

I'd like to know too.