Tons of traffic = Different TOS?

[smoger]

as the title says.. i spotted this on a MAJOR website.. many of you probably have seen this before and know exactly what site it is.. just wondering if its standard practice that if you have adsense on a major site that you get to do whatever you want to..

<<SPONSORED LINKS

Sponsored Links are advertisements that <domain removed>.com provides to you. We receive Sponsored Links from Google's AdWords service. When you click on a Sponsored Link, we get revenue. The selection of Sponsored Links that are displayed is based on keywords. For example, if you search for "Bruce Springsteen" or view pages about Bruce Springsteen, the Sponsored Links may point to sites that sell tickets to his concerts or provide information about him. Sponsored Links are always clearly labeled.

Generating additional revenue from Sponsored Links allows us to offer lower prices to you--something we are dedicated to doing every way we can. >>

or.. is this not even adsense, perhaps some completely different program G has set up for larger accounts?

[FrostyMug]

i think i know what this is, and I'm sure i saw this before. if it's a major site, they have an AdSense rep. if an AdSense rep wrote this for them, its "OK" with me.

truthfully, it's like having a cop in the family and driving around with a PBA card. we (without family connections) see it everyday, we don't like, but we accept it as a way of life.

[Thez]

Google has a premium publisher program for big sites. We get to modify the javascript directly and implement ad layouts as we please, while some restrictions apply (for example, all creatives must be labeled as "Ads by Google", etc)

Even though premium publishers get a lot of freedom, we still need to get our ads approved by Google after implementing our own versions.

[smoger]

cool, thanks for the insight

[andrea99]

By Googling portions of that text in quotes you'll find that it is a kind of boilerplate, either distributed by an AdSense rep or copied from one site to another.

The number of sites returned with such a search suggests that it may be more than just competing sites copying each other, but it's not a huge number.

[21_blue]

Interestingly this type of wording turns up on a few sites (Ooops... Andrea beat me to it).

Anyway, one of them tells the reader to go through the links to make purchases, whilst another (that I visit probably once or twice a week) just says the site makes money through the links.

The key thing is that, if I were an advertiser, I wouldn't be concerned by the wording of the information on these sites. It's partly to do with the image of the site I guess.

What's funny is that, for the site I visit regularly, I've never actually seen this page, nor do I recall seeing any Google Ads. I must be suffering from ad blindness... perhaps I need an eyesight test :-)

[jomaxx]

Only responding to this because the thread title completely oversells the severity of the violation...

Firstly, the original source of this quote appears to be the #1 online retailer and probably about the third-largest Web company overall. It should go without saying that they have different rules.

Secondly, this disclaimer is nothing special. There doesn't appear to be any intent to encourage people to click the ads. Even regular AdSensers have been given permission to put up similar statements in their FAQs.

[frox]

Found by googling some portion of that text:

... right now, the Internet is not a particularly friendly environment for "content" businesses.

Gah, I know no other situation where anyone with good contents could monetize it so easily.

[andrea99]

Gah, I know no other situation where anyone with good contents could monetize it so easily.

I think they mean businesses that formerly had a lock on monetizing content: magazines, newsletters, etc. The internet is not very friendly for them, it is a monster of a competitor.