Traffic from AdWords now Prohibited?

[shafaki]

According to Google's 'new' policy:

In addition, publishers may not bring unnatural attention to sites displaying ads through unsolicited mass emails or unwanted advertisements on third-party websites. These activities are strictly prohibited in order to avoid potential inflation of advertiser costs.

[google.com...]

I'm not sure what the word "unwanted" in the phrase "unwanted advertisements" means, but according to one interpretation it could spell the end of 'buying' traffic for your AdSense site via AdWords. What do you think and how do you understand that phrase?

[arran]

It could spell the end of 'buying' traffic for your AdSense site via AdWords.

No chance.

[JoaoJose]

A webmaster that buys adwords clicks and sells
adsense clicks is G heaven. They will never disallow that....

[lammert]

unwanted advertisements

It is hard to believe that Google would call its own advertisement network "unwanted". :)

I asked Google specifically about this new rule about a week ago in a slightly different context. They responded that the couldn't give precise details about their definition of "unwanted", but the examples I gave were all within the terms. Based on the examples I gave them and their response, my personal guess is that they added this rule to fight blog comment spam and forum spam. Using this rule they can now close accounts that are engaged in these types of spam.

[anton23]

Well, how can be AdSense unwanted ads? We just put the ads on our websites if we want and if we are paid for.

[Alioc]

It talks about those 100K hits for $50 junk traffic offers and bulk mailings.

[anton23]

Exactly, Google does something against spammers and scrapers. Who says they are bad guys?

[humblebeginnings]

Don't know who/when/where, but a while ago there was a post on the same subject. As I recall, someone contacted G and they said buying Adwords traffic and guiding it to your pages with Adsense code was perfectly fine.

[MediaSpree]

"...on third-party websites"

I am pretty sure google.com is a "first-party" site in this sense :)

[ebuilder]

I think unwanted ads on 3rd party websites would probably be adding a link to your website on a forums without permissions (i.e. spam). Ads on Adwords are not unwanted thery are paid. Links on forums on the the other hand are usually unwanted and even unallowed. Is unallowed a word :(

[edited by: ebuilder at 1:52 pm (utc) on Aug. 30, 2005]

[AusDaddy]

"unwanted advertisements on third-party websites"

At first I thought that unwanted meant unwanted by the user, but on closer inspectionI am pretty sure they mean adds that are unwanted by the third party website that they appear on. ie you cannot spam a forum with adds for your site, as the forum owner probably doesn't want the adds, but you can pay for a banner on a forum as the site owner wanted the add there.

But IANAL so who knows!

[ann]

Unwanted ads can also be someone running around pasting their own ads on boards, guest books, etc.

Ann

[Jenstar]

Blog spam, forum spam, guestbook spam....