Putting Adsense on my forum

[PFOnline]

I recently told the members of my message board, that our forum has grown so large it is costing me alot of money for bandwidth (which it is) and told them basically I needed to add some advertisements to help pay for the cost.

I was going to make a post letting everyone know I'm going to add the ad, and give it a "test run" but I'm worried about Google.

Is it safe to put a post "Please only click on the advertisements if they interest you" or would Google frown on even this? Because I'm worried people are going to mass click on the ad's, to help pay for the cost.

What is my best way to do this... To implement the ad's, and make a post about it, to let people know, who are wondering about these new ad's. (forum never had any ad's in the past) without my fear of Google thinking I'm enticing users to click, because I said the message board costs alot to run.

Or is there no way back now that I made that post in the first place, and I shouldn't add the Adsense?

I just want to do this the right way, and don't want to take any chances, and make Google mad.

[Jesse_Smith]

:::Because I'm worried people are going to mass click on the ad's, to help pay for the cost.

You should of just put up the ads with out telling them about your costs! Then you wouldn't of had to wory about geting mass clicks! Google probably wouldn't like that message.

[PFOnline]

Well, I understand what you're saying, but I wanted to let the people know why I needed to put up the ad's. Because the forum had never had ad's in the past.

Otherwise some might be a little confused.

[AZEvil]

Don't put anything up that would bring attention to the ads being there for you to make money. It would be against the TOS.

[Atomic]

Delete the post and wait a while and slip the ads in a few weeks from now without mentioning that you did it. Some members on a forum I added AdSense to commented on the ads and joked about them but I never added a comment of my own. Members tended to never click though so I eventually removed them.

[PFOnline]

Yep, this is what I was worried about.

Would it be safe to just delete the post, and add the ad's?

Added: Ahh OK, thanks for the advice. This still just feels a little sneaky though.

Damn, why should it be a crime to let your users know why there's now ad's on the forum, when there hasn't been any in the past?

[AZEvil]

Because it brings attention to the ads and suggests that the users can help you out by clicking on them. They probably wouldn't even care about what the ads are for...just that they supported you. Advertisers get be very upset when they are spending money on clicks that are worthless to them.

[PFOnline]

I understand, I'm just kinda venting. ;)

Say I didn't allready make that post...

Would there have been a way to let the members know, who are wondering about these new ad's?

I think it'd be kind of weird if ad's appeared, and they've never been there before, and I didn't say anything about them and why they are now mysteriously there, and they asked questions about them, but I had to ignore them.

[HellaCooL]

I used adsense on my huge forum for the exactly same reason.
There was higher interest during the first few days, but soon it went back to normal, and people pretty much clicked only on ads that interested them.

I really believe that 99.9% of accounts get closed because of the people clicking on their own ads. Don't do that and I don't think that you should worry too much.

[PatrickDeese]

If I was using a forum that suddenly started showing ads, I would assume that the forum owner was attempting to monetize the traffic on the site.

I would neither expect nor demand an explanation.

Putting an "explanation" about the Adsense ads is treading very close to the edge, especially in a forum setting.

If I were you, not only would I delete the post, I would put some normal banner ads up for a bit, then switch to the adsense - just to make sure that people didn't get a bright idea to start clicking on them.