Question Regarding Google TOS

is this okay to do?

[naitsirhc26]

Hello,

So I run a blogging site where people in my niche can come and get their very own blog hosted by my website for free. To cover some of the hosting costs, I have Adsense on all of the blogs.

Basically, I want to write a post explaining to my members what the ads are all about. I would want to tell them that the ads are there to cover hosting costs, and that they will become more targeted once they post more posts to their blogs.

Do you think even mentioning the ads like this is okay against Google's TOS?

Thanks!

Christian

[netmeg]

I'd be more worried about your business model.

What if these people post stuff that isn't allowed? What if they piss someone off, and that someone decides to come in and gang-click their blogs?

[AussieWebmaster]

What if they start clicking on the ads!

[naitsirhc26]

So it would be illegal for THEM to click on the ads on their blogs, even though the return is coming to me?

[londrum]

...netmeg has got the important point

google don't allow there ads to appear on pages containing porn, gambling, violent stuff etc etc... and how do you know what all these people are going to write about?

you'd have to police everything they put up.

[naitsirhc26]

You know, it really isn't the people I am worried about; it's the spam comments, etc...Under my own TOS on the blogging system, any blog containing adult, crime, etc...will be deleted immediately. As it is a kid friendly network. BUT, I would be worried if someone wasn't monitoring their blog of spam/adult comments on the individual blogs themselves.

SO, I have decided that maybe having Adsense on the blogs isn't that great of an idea. Plus, what if I were to miss something as I am policing the blogs? I wouldn't want that to slip past and jeopardize my entire Adsense operation.

Anyways, nobody wants ads on a site that is being hosted for them. Do you think PayPal donations, etc...might be a better option to use with this system? I have been known to donate to certain free things, etc...and I would most definitely donate a bit here and there if I was getting a site hosted, without ads, free of charge.

Any thoughts?

[londrum]

donation buttons are a waste of time in my opinion. they make your site look tacky as well.

but there are a couple of other things you could do.

amazon have tailored ads which match the content as well. so if they write about dogs, then the ad will display books about dogs. they also seem to pull some of their content from the amazon cookie logged on the visitor's computer as well.
so if the visitor had recently bought a book about widgets from amazon, then the ads would be be about widgets, regardless of the blog's content.

and there are a few programs which will underline choice words within the content. you've probably seen them before... words which are double-underlined and display ad when hovered over. maybe you could look into some of those.