Forum Moderators: martinibuster
But can anyone here confirm what that policy covers? If you placed pictures of kittens next to your ads, would a visitor honestly associate the kittens with the nearby ads for DVD players? Can you place your site's logo or a random colored square next to the ads, assuming that they don't have arrows or otherwise "point" to the ads themselves? Don't people have ads on photo galleries, and those pictures draw their attention? What do we know concretely about the Adsense TOS with respect to how images are used near ads?
At some point, you just have to use common sense. If you're placing images in such a way as to draw attention or clicks, that's a bad idea.
Frankly I don't think this gimmick actually works at all (unless the design is extremely deceptive), but it brings the whole program into disrepute so I'm glad Google cracked down on it.
One can easily interpet that as not placing images of DVD players next to ads if your site is about DVD players.
If that's the case, then the solution is easy: Don't place the ads in the middle of your editorial content. To borrow jomaxx's term, use "common sense" instead of worrying about how close you can get to the Mona Lisa or the Crown Jewels before you trigger an alarm.
]Frankly I don't think this gimmick actually works at all (unless the design is extremely deceptive)[]
It does increase the number of clicks, whether it's deceptive or not is probably relative to the images used. If you have a site about DVD players and use pictures of kittens, I think people will still be more inclined to glance at the ads just because something is next to them. Its safe to say that no one will confuse a kitten with a DVD player. If you use very specific product images (like an iPhone), then I can see how it's deceptive as someone could easily assume the generic tech store ad next to it will carry the iPhone that they've been thinking of getting (maybe the store actually does, but the fact that they may not could mean a wasted click for that advertiser).
I understand what you mean about inevitable amgiguity and not being able to cover every base, but I find it odd that G's support staff sometimes offers conflicting emails as to what's acceptable and what isn't.
...but I find it odd that G's support staff sometimes offers conflicting emails as to what's acceptable and what isn't.
I recently spent the most of 2 weeks at a hospital with a relative who was having heart bypass surgery. There were a number of times when a nurse, doctor or other hospital staff member would provide information A only to have someone else provide conflicting information B later on.
Accurate communication within a large organization of humans is a challenge for the most competent of business managers.
Considering the number of publishers AdSense must have and the size of the staff Google devotes to service those publishers, I'd be surprised (and impressed) if different Google employees didn't sometimes offer conflicting information.
FarmBoy
webmasters were doing the "four images" trick
You answered your own question, if you only knew what to look for.
Just don't do anything that you might consider a "trick" to get more clicks or draw more attention to the ads.
