Changing Ads for Members/Guests

Against TOS?

[willmullis]

Hey gang,

I am considering implimenting a change to my website. I run a forum and as most forums I experience a fairly low CTR. I also display small ads just because I don't want the ads to overpower the contest. I am considering placing a large leaderboard style adsense ad at the top of the page if the person on the site is a visitor. Once they register or log in the ads will return to normal size.

I am not going to make any text like "Don't want to see the ads? Register Now!". I simply would like to try to get some click through from people just visiting because I get thousands of referes from the SEs each month and would like to capitalize on those visitors(who never register) somehow.

Do you guys think this would be against Google's TOS? I have read it several times and am now sure what they would think about it.

[kodaks]

I'm not an expert, but as long as you don't say that the ads will disappear when you login, it should be all right. All I can find out of the TOS is that you can't put something on your page that makes users pay attention to your ads. Like a "Click on my ads!". Can anyone confirm what I said?

[lammert]

According to the TOS you are only allowed to put ads on pages with content. If you want to put a large ad on your login screen I guess it is against the TOS. But if it is the normal forum page and unregistered visitors see the same content as registered visitors, only with a larger ad format, it might not be a problem.

[edited by: lammert at 8:38 pm (utc) on Jan. 20, 2005]

[willmullis]

That is exactly what I'm trying to do. I want to display a bigger ad to visitors while displaying a smaller ad to logged in members. The content of the page is exactly the same except for the size and maybe color of the add.

I would do it through php with something like

If member = visitor

'show this google add'

else

'show this google add

End if

[yoyo8]

This is definitely ok to do. Contact them directly to be sure.