Google Bans Deceptive AdSense Ad Placements

It took them long enough, but Google has finally put the kabosh on deceptive ad placements. Specifically:

• You can’t place ads under misleading titles or headings; and
• You can’t blend the ads such that they’re indistinguishable from other content.

This is not a ban against ad blending in general — choosing ad colors to match the color scheme of the rest of the page — but a ban against ad placements that are specifically designed to fool the user into thinking the ads are not ads, but content.

I’ve seen some egregious placements over the years. I remember once reading an ebook that specifically recommended you use a heading like “Top 10 Methods To Stop Smoking” followed by a large rectangle ad unit and then a list of 6 stop-smoking tips. This made it seem like the ads (which would normally — but not always! — show 4 ads) were part of the list. That kind of reader duping is now specifically forbidden.

Google Improving the Content Network

These measures are part of Google’s overall strategy of improving the quality of the sites in the Google Content Network, which includes us AdSense publishers. AdWords advertisers can now use demographics to target the content network . Many of the recent messages from Google to its AdWords customers have been trying to encourage advertisers to try the Content Network.

It may be that Google is seeing slower growth in its core search advertising business and has therefore renewed focus on the contextual advertising business. It’s too bad it’s taken so long for these things to happen, though.

See also Search Engine Roundtable.

AdSense and Porn

AdSense publishers cannot use AdSense on adult-oriented sites. This has been a long-standing policy of Google’s. To quote the relevant part of the AdSense program policies:

Sites displaying Google ads may not include … pornography, adult, or mature content

In most cases it’s easy enough for publishers to know what qualifies as adult content and to refrain from showing ads in those situations. But what if you’re dealing with user-generated content?

User-generated content — comments, postings, searches, ratings, etc. — is a great way to get traffic and links, but it can also open up Pandora’s box. Because people talk about sex. They search for sex (literally and figuratively). They tell dirty jokes. They post nude pictures. They do all kinds of naughty things, things that might not be kosher with the AdSense program policies.

So what do you do about it?

The first step is to make sure that all the non-user-generated content on the site abides by the program policies. That shouldn’t be a problem.

The second step is to determine whether or not adult/mature user-generated content should be allowed on your site at all. For some sites it’s a no-brainer — family-oriented sites being a prime example. If you don’t want adult content, make sure your terms of service state that fact and put some mechanisms in place to moderate the content. (If you’re building communities, you’ll be surprised at how well the community itself can police its own members in this regard — that may be all that’s needed.)

Assuming you’re OK with adult content, the third step is to deal with it appropriately. You could, for example, create “adult-only” areas of a site where such content is acceptable. Or have a way for users to flag/vote on objectionable content and let visitors set their own “filtering levels”. Squidoo has this feature, for example.

But what do you do in place of AdSense if you have adult content? Because AdSense ads will not be displayed on adult-oriented pages once Google determines what’s on those pages. The alternatives aren’t hard to figure out:

• Don’t display anything at all.
• Join an adult ad network.

You’d be surprised at the number of affiliate programs available for adult material! Let’s face it, if big Web 2.0 players like Squidoo and StumbleUpon benefit from porn, there’s nothing that says you can’t, either. Unless you think all pornography is evil, of course.

But we’re not here to debate the pros and cons of pornography, just to discuss what to do about adult content on your AdSense sites. The safest approach is to avoid it altogether. If you can’t, or won’t, then try to segregate it. Then decide if you want to monetize it.