Just when you thought it was safe to blend your ads with your website, along comes this post on the Adsense blog warning us otherwise..
If you’re too lazy to read it, section 1 says:
1. Ads shouldn’t be placed under a title or section heading in a way that implies that the ads are not ads.
For example, ads shouldn’t be placed under titles such as “Dallas Business Opportunities†or “Today’s Hot Dealsâ€.
For a long time, adsense publishers were forbidden to use labels other than “Advertisers” or “Sponsored Links” over adsense blocks. Sounds to me like Google is having second thoughts about lifting that restriction!
The second point is:
2. Ads should be easily distinguishable from surrounding content.
Similarly, you should not place an ad unit by a group of links that has identical colors and line spacing. Doing so may cause users to think the ad unit is content created by you.
So blend your ads – just don’t blend them too well!
This comes on the heels of the February Adsense Policies update which states (among other things) that all sites running Adsense must now have and abide by a privacy policy…
[tags]adsense, google, web development[/tags]