I'm doing something illegal? Discussion about header/footer placement

bad adsense setup

[Legit]

I've been told that the header/footer of a website should not have adsense in them since it's against TOS, but I can't find it anywhere that says I can't do this. Why do people tell me this?

[HuskyPup]

Why do people tell me this?

I have no idea other than the possibility they have no idea!

I have a 728 x 90 banner in all my headers on all sites, some sites I also have a 728 x 15 AdLink unit as well and they have been like that for what, 6+ years, seen and approved by the AdSense team.

The footer? I have on all my Coppermine galleries a 728 x 90 in the footer as well as the banner in the header.

If I'm wrong then I've been wrong from the very beginning:-)

[tangor]

Hang your Adsense wherever you like... header, foot, body... just don't make it look like it is IN THE BODY TEXT and indistinguishable from your content.

[marcel]

If it's an automatically included Footer and Header, just be careful not to show AdSense on Error Pages and the like, otherwise there's no problem.

[incrediBILL]

Why do people tell me this?

Probably because placing AdSense in a generic site-wide header or footer will cause AdSense to display on non-content-based pages or pages that violate the content guidelines.

[farmboy]

Just FWIW, being "illegal" and being in violation of Google's Terms & Policies are two very different things. Very different.

Back to work now.


FarmBoy

[Legit]

Thanks guys, I have 48 error pages. Thanks for telling me this. I am killing off my first website since I moved into two blogs and transferred a ton of the data onto those sites. The header shows up on those pages, but I'm not sure what to do.

I have 91 blog posts on one site/30 blogs posts on the other site. Should I kill the site now that has so many error pages from redirecting into the main site?

[johnnie]

just don't make it look like it is IN THE BODY TEXT and indistinguishable from your content.

Partly disagree. Placing a 336x280 in the body is one of the best things I've done in my life. It's non-deceptive, but very prominent, as your ads should be if you want any revenue these days.

[JS_Harris]

Should I kill the site now that has so many error pages from redirecting into the main site?

If you have no plans on developing the site and its not complete by all means shut it down.

Otherwise, no, don't do something complicated when there is a more simple solution. You mentioned its a wordpress site so just modify your error page template a little perhaps like this...

- copy your header.php file and rename it header2.php.
- open header2.php and remove adsense, repace it with whatever else you fancy.
- open your 404 template and replace "get_header();" with "include'header2.php';"

That's overly simple since I don't know which template you're using but you get the idea, a different adsense free header for error/search/privacy pages is a good idea.