This week's policy blog post, titled "Don't run the risk of click and miss," is about ad implementations that could lead to accidental clicks.
To make sure everyone understands this particular issue, please keep the conversations on this thread focused on this specific topic. Last week, a lot of people seemed to have questions about separate issues, and I just want to make sure no one gets confused about the policy. Please feel free to start new threads to talk about those things this week.
> This week's policy blog post, titled "Don't run the risk of click and > miss," is about ad implementations that could lead to accidental > clicks.
> To make sure everyone understands this particular issue, please keep > the conversations on this thread focused on this specific topic. Last > week, a lot of people seemed to have questions about separate issues, > and I just want to make sure no one gets confused about the policy. > Please feel free to start new threads to talk about those things this > week.
This is a "common sense" reminder. Thanks for posting it!
If advertisers make no money with their ads, they'll (probably -or- eventually) stop advertising altogether. This is bad for both Google - and- the publishers (meaning us).
It's in our best interest to send valuable, relevant and interested (albeit, not accidental) clicks to Google's advertisers. The reward for doing so is a decent ad revenue stream for a long, long time.
> This week's policy blog post, titled "Don't run the risk of click and > miss," is about ad implementations that could lead to accidental > clicks.
> To make sure everyone understands this particular issue, please keep > the conversations on this thread focused on this specific topic. Last > week, a lot of people seemed to have questions about separate issues, > and I just want to make sure no one gets confused about the policy. > Please feel free to start new threads to talk about those things this > week.
I think this is going to cause a lot of confusion.
The blog entry says: "Some implementations that could lead to accidental clicks include placing your ads ... (n)ear site navigation controls on your pages, such as drop-downs or menu links"
1. link units are best placed near the site's navigation area. They aren't paid if they are just clicked. Are they also forbidden to be places near "clickable" areas? 2. ""Business results" can range from an online sale to a page view. If we detect enough of these clicks and determine that the risk to our advertisers is too great, we may disable the account." - where is the publishers fault if an ad is very appealing yet the website is extremely poor 3. What means "near features of your site that your users may interact with by clicking."? In a forum, almost all the content is near a link.
> I think this is going to cause a lot of confusion.
> The blog entry says: "Some implementations that could lead to > accidental clicks include placing your ads ... (n)ear site navigation > controls on your pages, such as drop-downs or menu links"
I, too, am a bit confused by the guidance. It would be nice if we could have some examples of what is acceptable and what is not. For example, would the sidebar ads in my blog qualify as okay or not okay?
I try to make the navigational elements very distinctive by having a gold links on a dark background for site links with blue links on white background for Adsense Ads links. (They are more blended on my main site, and I will have to look at that ... should be clear that they are not navigational links, but I will look at afresh.) But, the ads are relatively "near" navigational links, as would no doubt be the case for thousands of blogs.
If my Ads are deemed to be too close to navigational links, how would you suggest solving it? The only solutions I can think of are to post the ads so far down on the sidebar that they are far removed from the navigational elements (but would be seen by fewer readers) or to go to a three column format in which navigational links are in a separate column from ads. And, it's not even clear to me that a separate sidebar for ads would be an acceptable solution as they could, in theory, be perceived by some as navigational. Not trying to being sarcastic, just trying to bound this in terms that a simple guy like me can (1) understand and (2) address.
Finally, does this apply to referral ads as well as other Adsense ads? My understanding of referral ads is that I get paid only when a product is sold, and not on number of clicks, in which case "accidental clicks" are irrelevant. If the best way for me to avoid being penalized is to use only referral ads, I suppose I could go with that option, but would like to know whether it is a necessity for me to do so.
Thank you. Bruce Keener Keener Living and Keen PDA sites
> I think this is going to cause a lot of confusion.
> The blog entry says: "Some implementations that could lead to > accidental clicks include placing your ads ... (n)ear site navigation > controls on your pages, such as drop-downs or menu links"
Why Adsense cant just notify those very users whose pages are producing clicks which are considered to be "invalid"? Why do we, Adsense publishers have to play blindfolded, having no clue about the business results of the ads placed on our pages? If those business results are considered to be critical and nondiscloseable info, then publishers at least could get the abstract scale of the ad productivity. It could be as showing a simple indicator which would rate ad's business productivity and maybe suspiciousness with the words like "bad", "normal" and "good", where "bad" would mean that the advertiser has to take some action to improve the indicator. I believe it would be much better then shutting up accounts of publishers who had no intention to make there pages producing "invalid" or "fraudulent" clicks.
> This week's policy blog post, titled "Don't run the risk of click and > miss," is about ad implementations that could lead to accidental > clicks.
> To make sure everyone understands this particular issue, please keep > the conversations on this thread focused on this specific topic. Last > week, a lot of people seemed to have questions about separate issues, > and I just want to make sure no one gets confused about the policy. > Please feel free to start new threads to talk about those things this > week.
I fully support you when you disallow to cheat the users by masking link units as menu, or by treating an ad as internal link of the site, etc.
But if I CLEARLY show an ad banner to a user what is my fault? Yes, it is in proximity to interactive parts of my site but I *don't* cheat anybody. Question to all readers: how often do you miss to click some "interactive part" of a site? I remember it happened to me last time when I was dead drunk.
If be more constructive: please define what do you mean under "close proximity". Is it 1 pixel? Or may be 100? The answer can work out the problem.
> > I think this is going to cause a lot of confusion.
> > The blog entry says: "Some implementations that could lead to > > accidental clicks include placing your ads ... (n)ear site navigation > > controls on your pages, such as drop-downs or menu links"
I'm in agreement with the other posters on this one. I believe this needs a bit more explanation and I'm dumbfounded on why Google would give such vague information like this in the first place. It definitely contradicts with your optimization tips. On a forum some ads can be "near" navigational links if using a lower resolution display (800x600 for example) but aren't a problem when using say 1024x768. I certainly haven't purposely places ads so to get accidental clicks from users but I feel that we are all under the gun on this rule considering almost every ad on the Internet today is "near" a navigational link of some kind. This is absolutely absurd and I certainly hope you rectify our questions and points in another blog post.
I think this is getting difficult. I think I should just give the adsense team my server id and password and they can put the ads where they want them to go.
> This week's policy blog post, titled "Don't run the risk of click and > miss," is about ad implementations that could lead to accidental > clicks.
> To make sure everyone understands this particular issue, please keep > the conversations on this thread focused on this specific topic. Last > week, a lot of people seemed to have questions about separate issues, > and I just want to make sure no one gets confused about the policy. > Please feel free to start new threads to talk about those things this > week.
Well, I also think that this is a totally unnecesary rule. I can't even understand it. This is just an other chance for honest webmasters who never click to their ads and never ask their friends to do it, to be banned. And yes, this is against your optimization tips.
I also don't really understand what does "close" mean. How many pixels? Many webmasters who read your optimization tips placed their ads near their navigational units. Will they all be banned because they don't read Inside AdSense blog? I think a new blog post would be necessary where you explain this whole thing.
> I think this is going to cause a lot of confusion.
> The blog entry says: "Some implementations that could lead to > accidental clicks include placing your ads ... (n)ear site navigation > controls on your pages, such as drop-downs or menu links"
I put one of my adsense code blocks near my navigation but I do try to keep enough gap between them as to try and avoid any possiblity of inadvertant clicks.
> This week's policy blog post, titled "Don't run the risk of click and > miss," is about ad implementations that could lead to accidental > clicks.
> To make sure everyone understands this particular issue, please keep > the conversations on this thread focused on this specific topic. Last > week, a lot of people seemed to have questions about separate issues, > and I just want to make sure no one gets confused about the policy. > Please feel free to start new threads to talk about those things this > week.
I don't read this stuff often. I just came across this group because I was trying to figure out why the adsense team started hassling me on May 1. I got a nasty-gram from someone named Cornelius mentioning that I would be blacklisted:
"Please understand that if we continue to detect this activity, we will be forced to blacklist your site and/or disable your AdSense account to ensure our advertisers are protected. "
The activity they detected? My children's paint program (dreezle and the dot come thing)! It's written in Java, not Flash, so I was confused when they accused me of creating a Flash animation to get people to click on the banner (top of the page, loading first). The page is really simple. It has always been configured the way it is (the ads have been there for a long, long, long time). Now suddenly it's a problem. Did they say create some whitespace? No. Did they say they were changing their policy? No.
You know it's not that I have a big problem with google deciding how they want people to run their ads. But I have a GREAT BIG PROBLEM with how they treat their customers when google changes their minds about what they want.
Very clearly they started this new policy and at the same time started a harassment campaign.
Nice.
When I wrote back and told the sweet customer service folks to change their tone, stop accusing and intimidating and tell what was going on, I got the typical "we're top secret and you're not" response.
You know what? I do this for fun, not profit. I am so disenchanted.
There is an advertising right above the first item. On your guidelines logic you try to cheat the users: they search "CHEAP mortgage" and can click on the ad taking it for *organic* search result.
Does this tactic hurt an advertiser? As they may got a good portion of accidental clicks.
> This week's policy blog post, titled "Don't run the risk of click and > miss," is about ad implementations that could lead to accidental > clicks.
> To make sure everyone understands this particular issue, please keep > the conversations on this thread focused on this specific topic. Last > week, a lot of people seemed to have questions about separate issues, > and I just want to make sure no one gets confused about the policy. > Please feel free to start new threads to talk about those things this > week.
That ad can be described as near the menu, yet the ads must surely be approved by AdSense given that they have been customised. There is approximately 6 pixels between the clickable area of the ad and menu. So, click and miss is a possibility there.
How many pixels of space should there be between the two?
My thread got removed because i practiced freedom of speech,i wasn't even notified of this,they just removed it. aren't forums meant to be open and honest?? here is my post again I was on the Adsense program for about two week and while i wasn't making huge amounts, it was like pocket money that otherwise i didn't have . One day i discovered that my account was disabled because of TWO invalid clicks, yes you read it right TWO !! when i wrote to Google and tried to explain that i have no idea where the clicks came from and that i personally didn't click them i was told basically "Too Bad" i then noticed that the ads were too close to the buttons on the task bar on my site and tried to explain that if those two lousy clicks came from my computer then it was in error and not cheating, again Google didn't want to know about it . Apparently Google doesn't believe in human errors when it comes to their precious ads, and they don't believe in warnings and rectification of a mistake, they just cut you off, and let me remind you again, it was over TWO clicks, two clicks would probably pay me 10c if that and when i told Google that it doesn't make sense i was told again "TOO BAD" Google should implement some sort of Warning stage and give us an opportunity to try and fix a mistake , even real criminals sometimes get a second chance . why the aggressive policy?? i am very disappointed but hey it's not the end of the world at least i will get some publicity from it as i have contacted papers and Current Affair programs to tell them about big corporation bullying and harsh treatments where due to these companies large size anyone is just a number because i'm sure if Google was starting out then i would have been far more valuable to them .so yes, don't run the risk of click and miss, you will not be forgiven ,EVER!!!
> This week's policy blog post, titled "Don't run the risk of click and > miss," is about ad implementations that could lead to accidental > clicks.
> To make sure everyone understands this particular issue, please keep > the conversations on this thread focused on this specific topic. Last > week, a lot of people seemed to have questions about separate issues, > and I just want to make sure no one gets confused about the policy. > Please feel free to start new threads to talk about those things this > week.
This is an interesting policy, and I don't see it as being in conflict with optimization recommendations. There is a significant difference between putting your ads in proximity to a navigation bar so they will attract attention, and doing things like positioning them so they will be UNDERNEATH drop down menus and drop down lists, so that they get accidental clicks.
As for why Google doesn't give us specific measurements (ie, ads must be 5 pixels away from navigation links) I think that's reasonable also...Google isn't attempting to disrupt legitimate publishers - their goal is to deal with those who are abusing the system. And if you've been doing business on the internet for even a week or two, you know that the internet is FILLED with people who want to abuse whatever system they're given to work within.
So if Google gives us a specific guidelines, what happens? Those of us who aren't trying to trick the system say "Oh, they weren't talking about me anyway", and the abusers try to figure out how to keep within that guideline while still tricking people into clicking ads. That's no good...
So what to do? When you're building your site, don't try to figure out how to trick the system - figure out how to make your layout honest and useful. And then you've got nothing to worry about...
About the only safe guide is Google's own sites. For example Gmail has ads 8 pixels from a 2-pixel wide border that surrounds an email message. So that should be safe. Using a border or line of some kind will help your case, but if you prefer not, I would leave a few extra pixels - maybe 12? Note that the email message has space between the text and the border also.
Google still mean that placement. What they are pointing out are drop down navigations that may overlap or cover the ad and readers might accidentally click the ads instead of the menu or links placed in the drop down navigation.
> I think this is going to cause a lot of confusion.
> The blog entry says: "Some implementations that could lead to > accidental clicks include placing your ads ... (n)ear site navigation > controls on your pages, such as drop-downs or menu links"
Can you please tell me where it says this?? I have to let my daughter know she must take that off.I have gone thru the site and do not see it..thank you
