Blending an advert into the site

[ricey]

Am I right in thinking that there is something in the TOS with Google that you cannot 'blend' an advert in to a website too much - so you confuse the user that it may be part of your site?

The reason I ask is because I see more and more adsense adverts with white background on a white page which blend in beautifully with the site in question. Is this wrong or good business? Mine stand out and I wonder if this is affecting my CTR.

Cheers
ricey

[jetteroheller]

Blend in is also a typ from AdSense itself

[ricey]

Sorry I'm not sure what you mean jetteroheller

Sorry for being thick:-)

ricey

[moTi]

afaik you can blend your ads how you like. but there is another problem: blending might increase your ctr big time, but the more you blend, the more people click unintentionally. the consequences are:

- misleading the users to click is resulting in a bad surfing experience for your visitors. they may not come back to your site in the future.

- if a user clicks unintentionally, he is not really interested in the ad (e.g. buying the product that is offered). so the clicks are low quality for the advertiser. low quality clicks lead to a low conversion rate. it is said, that a low conversion rate leads to smart pricing kicking in and lowering your earnings.

- blending (especially the whithe page white background thing) is often associated with mfa sites (made for adsense, no real content) leaving a bad taste for the user

so be careful with blending too much. it might have undesirable effects. to my mind, it's the best to leave the ads recognized as ads, but to bring them prominently into visitors' focus.