Google Adsense "Ads by Google" showing as black background in IE

[lucasmcdonnell]

I have been trying to figure out why "Ads by Google" is showing up with a black background on my site... but only in IE (6 and 7). It displays fine in Firefox.

I hope this hasn't been asked already, but I've searched and searched to no avail. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[edited by: martinibuster at 5:34 pm (utc) on Oct. 26, 2007]
[edit reason] Removed URL. [/edit]

[pageoneresults]

Hello lucasmcdonnell, Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

Is it possible you have some sort of ad blocking going on in IE that doesn't affect Firefox?

Or, do you have your ads in a div that has a black background and maybe some improper z-indexing going on?

[AussieWebmaster]

personally I think Google is messing with adsense right now

[tim222]

I think pageoneresults is on the right track. It's probably an HTML issue. FireFox doesn't always interpret HTML exactly the same as IE.

Start with a blank text file and paste in nothing but your ad code. Name the file something like test.html. You can run it from your desktop using both IE and FireFox. If the ad in the test file appears the same in both browsers, then it's most likely related to the HTML on your website.

[netmeg]

I took a look at it before the url was removed, and it was doing the same thing for me - worked okay in Firefox, but weird black box in IE7. No ad blockers here.

[AussieWebmaster]

I had a problem for about a day or more where the links were not clickable in IE.... did nothing and it righted itself.

[HowYesNo]

did you ever heard about png transparency? ;)
ie sux when need to display png images ;)

[fredw]

The "Ads by Google" adjusts itself to the color scheme you pick for the ad. Perhaps if you try adjusting the colors in the ad setup that might help.

[lucasmcdonnell]

Thanks for your replies everyone. I did a little more messing around with the site's HTML, and when I change the main background of the site to white, the problem goes away in IE (that is, the background of the ad is now inherited as white from the main background color).

So I guess, this is not really an Adsense question any more, but more a web design question. I still haven't been able to figure this one out (I played around with the Adsense code, no luck there), it must be the site code.

I don't really know anything about z-indexing, but will try to read up on it. Could that have an effect on this?

Still any help would be greatly appreciated.

[lucasmcdonnell]

I should also add one more thing -- even if I surround the ads in a div that specify the background should be white, the background will still show up as black on that part of the ad. Very strange...

[lucasmcdonnell]

HowYesNo... you're a genius. A did a quick Google search for transparency issues in IE, and then discovered "filter: alpha(opacity=100);" in my stylesheet (it's in the stylesheet of the Wordpress theme).

I snipped that out of the stylesheet, and Adsense is finally showing up properly in IE! Thanks a million!