Space/distance between ads and content/links

avoid penalties and increase revenue

[Runfun]

I believe it could help us all to find out the best distance between ads and content/links to avoid penalties. There where a few messages about this at the March topic including:

I’m sure I was told by someone spacing should be 2x <br> (Break tags), or 2 line-heights, or 2.4em from content

In my case I'm most 'worried' about the distance between my navbar and the ad right below it. With this extension for Chrome [chrome.google.com...] I measured about 27 pixels between the links at the navbar and the ad. Is this enough or do I need to increase the amount of pixels between them?

Maybe I didn't searched well but I can only find information about ads and flash games: [support.google.com...]

[dollarsound]

It's not what you asked, but it may give you some clue:

Distance between ads and flash games
When placing Google ads on Flash gaming sites, we strongly recommend a distance of at least 150 pixels between the ads and the the edge of a game. When users are concentrating on a Flash game and clicking frantically, invalid clicks are likely to occur. Since each game and site is unique, some games might require a greater distance based on the type of game and how it is played. For more guidelines, review AdSense for content ads on game play pages.

[support.google.com...]

[Runfun]

That's the link I shared but 150 pixels is huge at a normal website without flash games, etc. For example if you have an 728x90 ad you need an area of 1,028x390 pixels where you can't place links or content... I believe that's not the right distance or padding around ads for a website with text ;-)

[not2easy]

In general, any kind of links (click/tap targets) were suggested to be 44px min height and width to avoid accidental clicks - from Apple developer guidelines (links to which don't seem to work any more - they are pretty old). I see 32px for the same question from MS/Android info (not sure if the apple user has fatter fingers?) but I'm not finding any newer or different information. I did not go look it up, just have my own old notes from 5+ years ago. I do recall that in Google's mobile friendly testing tools they wanted 44px for link targets. Clearly identified targets are a good thing for users.

Yes, gaming sites where folks might be wildly hitting a screen would likely ask for more space away from those targets.