Forum Moderators: martinibuster

Message Too Old, No Replies

AdSense on free hosting sites is now allowed

Confirmation from Google

         

Jenstar

4:50 am on Aug 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



While Google had said previously that placing AdSense on free hosting sites (sites where you do not actually own the domain the content is placed on) was against the terms, and publishers were being asked to remove it.

Now, Google has confirmed that publishers ARE allowed to place AdSense and free hosting sites, specifically including Geocities.

However, I would still be careful to not double serve, if the free host is running AdSense on the page (including in a frame) to support the free hosting. And also be careful the host is not running any competitive ads, which would violate the AdSense terms if you were to also run AdSense on the page.

Teknorat

5:15 am on Aug 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I could have told you that a couple of months ago. :)

Powdork

5:39 am on Aug 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



However, I would still be careful to not double serve, if the free host is running AdSense on the page (including in a frame) to support the free hosting.
What if we're running adsense on a site on a free host running adsense and someone uses Opera's free browser running adsense. How much time will we spend in jail?;)

Vespasian

2:06 pm on Aug 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



How do you know adsense is now allowing their program on sites hosted at geocities?

When I have inquired on this board previously, I was told that adsense could NOT be on geocities hosted sites. Have I missed a change since then?

asp4bunnies

2:46 pm on Aug 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



That's surprising. If someone starts clicking their own ads and gets booted, it's going to be remarkably easy to just move the domain of the site to something new.

Jenstar

3:00 pm on Aug 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



How do you know adsense is now allowing their program on sites hosted at geocities?

Since there had been conflicting reports the last few weeks over whether AdSense was allowed on free hosting sites or not, I went straight to Google and asked. It definitely was not permitted before, but the policies have changed, and it is now allowed.

That's surprising. If someone starts clicking their own ads and gets booted, it's going to be remarkably easy to just move the domain of the site to something new.

The hard part about getting a new account is not a new domain. Google will not allow someone who has been suspended to get a new account, and while I am sure the domain name is checked, looking at the account holder's personal information (name, address, tax information, IP, etc) is the information which is harder to change, and more closely looked at.

creepychris

3:48 pm on Aug 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Absolutely, a step in the wrong direction! They should be increasing the quality of Adsense not decreasing it. Adsense on geocities = brandname in the trash = fewer people willing to take out content ads.

loanuniverse

3:53 pm on Aug 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



The fact that they are opening this up tells me that there is no shortage of inventory.

While I can see the arguments for doing so as some worthy sites are in free hosts, I don't think it will help the reputation of the program overall.

Then again, I might be wrong and they did this not so much for the possibly good sites that could be brought in, but solely for the $$

john_k

3:56 pm on Aug 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



This is one more solid reason to ignore the recent AdWords rebate offer for running ads in the Content Network.

ronin

4:08 pm on Aug 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



I thought GeoCities itself prohibited placing third party ads on any site that it hosts? Have things changed?

Vespasian

5:23 pm on Aug 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Good info Jenstar. One more question:

I plan to purchase hosting from geocities in order to get the geocities ads completely off the site. But I won't be using my own domain because if I did that, the URL would change and I would lose all the links going to the site. So, the URL will be [geocities.com...]

Is there any reason this won't work for adsense?

Vespasian

3:41 pm on Aug 17, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I want to kick this back into discussion. If I purchase a hosting account with geocities and do NOT use a domain name, can I put adsense on the site?

1. The site will have no pop-up ads on it because I have paid for the hosting, and the geocities ads will be taken off.

2. But, the URL will not be a domain name. It will be:
[geocities.com...] I will not be using a domain for this or I will lose all the back links.

Can I put adsense on an ad-free site with an [geocities.com...] URL?

Rodney

5:50 pm on Aug 17, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Vespasian, it seems as if your question is answered in the first post of the thread:

Now, Google has confirmed that publishers ARE allowed to place AdSense and free hosting sites, specifically including Geocities.

According to that, there should be no issues with you serving adsense on a paid hosting geocities page.

BenW

1:09 am on Aug 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



How about blogger sites? Since Google bought blogger.com it has run adsense at the top of all blog sites until recently. Now it has removed the ads. Are they planning to allow blogger users into Adsense?

stuartmcdonald

2:50 am on Aug 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



"This is one more solid reason to ignore the recent AdWords rebate offer for running ads in the Content Network. "

Yeah I agree 100% - have Google not been reading all the comments about the quality issues?

Anyway, thanks for the heads-up Jenstar, I'll pass the news onto my Grandma, she'll be glad to hear she can suplant her pension with google-mega-dollars earned from her Geo-cities "A Grandma's life" site...

ChrisKud5

5:47 am on Aug 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



This is great news, now the rate of crap sites will increase by the thousands.

Now anyone with a internet connection can put up some garbage on a site and slap adsense on it.

I am sure hosting companies are going to be thrilled about this one. They want people to click their ads, not adsense ads for the persons site.

I bet all of the free hosting sites block adsense from being on their subscribers pages.

Snow

12:07 pm on Aug 18, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I am sure hosting companies are going to be thrilled about this one. They want people to click their ads, not adsense ads for the persons site.

I bet all of the free hosting sites block adsense from being on their subscribers pages.


Well we're one free hosting company that's not very happy with this news.

Does anyone have a link where I can find out more about this issue? If I understood correctly, our members who have free sub-domain hosting accounts will now be able to apply for adsense for a sub-domain? Sorry for the dumb question it's just that I'm really confused, I always thought you had to own a domain before you could apply for adsense.

ChrisKud5

1:20 am on Aug 19, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Well we're one free hosting company that's not very happy with this news.
Does anyone have a link where I can find out more about this issue? If I understood correctly, our members who have free sub-domain hosting accounts will now be able to apply for adsense for a sub-domain? Sorry for the dumb question it's just that I'm really confused, I always thought you had to own a domain before you could apply for adsense.

I think this is a horrible idea for adsense. The ratio of crap sites to good sites will surely increase.

Free webspace companies should integrate into their work though. Make a section of each free page that has adsense on it. Use adsense to make money from your clients / subscribers. If adsense can be on any site now, i am sure that would be allowed.

Snow

6:17 am on Aug 19, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I think this is a horrible idea for adsense. The ratio of crap sites to good sites will surely increase.

Free webspace companies should integrate into their work though. Make a section of each free page that has adsense on it. Use adsense to make money from your clients / subscribers. If adsense can be on any site now, i am sure that would be allowed.

The problem is that when you give free hosting you do get alot of 'bad' sites. We are reluctant to place adsense on all member sites, if one member does something that violates the adsense ToS then it's us that get banned.

HughMungus

2:49 am on Aug 20, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



How about blogger sites? Since Google bought blogger.com it has run adsense at the top of all blog sites until recently. Now it has removed the ads. Are they planning to allow blogger users into Adsense?

I think it's been allowed on blogger for a while, hasn't it?

HughMungus

2:51 am on Aug 20, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I always thought you had to own a domain before you could apply for adsense.

Nope. As far as I know, you just have to have a website to show them (including blogs).

dmedia

5:15 am on Aug 20, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



DEEP THOUGHTS REGARDING ADSENSE ON "FREE" HOSTS:

Bad bad bad idea. For reasons expressed so succinctly by others.

REGARDING PROOF OF SITE OWNERSHIP TO RUN ADSENSE:

I'm pretty certain you need to either own OR be "authorized" by the domain owner to run Adsense. - Once upon a time, one of my sites was included in an online archiving project by a library (before Adsense came along) .. they'd send a spider around once a month or so to collect the newest version of the site .. eventually scraping up the Adsensed version.

After freaking out, I sent an email to Adsense informing them of the situation .. they gave me 3 options, (a) remove Adsense from the library archive (b) get a letter of "authorization" from the library granting me authority to be their Adsense manager (c) have Adsense simply stop showing ads with my pub id on the library site (using magic on the Adsense end)

Option 2 was very tempting ;) .. but I went with what was behind door number 3.

Granted, this was at least 6 months ago .. the rules and concerns of Adsense QC may be quite differant now.