Google's policy on paid survey sites

Back when I was getting my site approved for adsense, I was turned down once because I had links to a paid survey site. I hadn't read the terms that carefully. It was lumped in with the evil and illegal stuff:

"you may not link to sites that promote hate, death and destruction, nuclear weapons, or taking paid surveys"

Seems pretty random. And ironic considering on my "work from home" site, a good number of the AdSense ads served up are links to paid survey sites.

Are they serious? If I put up a link to a paid survey site and Google finds out with they banish me from the kingdom forever?

 

No, I don't want to be kicked, clearly. I'm mostly just ranting because it's silly.

 

Ha, look at the text ads under the first post. 4 for 4 paid survey sites.

 

Where did you take this line from ? I looked both in adsense's terms and conditions and programme policies - couldnt find it.

It that is true, a lot of "work from home " sites should have been kicked out... most of these sites must be having a link to a paid surveys site.

 

I was paraphrasing quite sarcastically.

Actually I was wrong, it's not in the terms and conditions at all, but rather in the "Program Policies" here:

https://www.google.com/adsense/policies

About 2/3 of the way down under the heading "Site Content".

As I said I'm not going to break the rule, I just think it's a stupid rule.

-Gary

 

These guidelines are for content of sites using adsense.

I think Google doesnt mind if you provide links to site which offer paid surveys.

In fact I have seen adsense ads on sites that offer incentives for clicking non -adsense ads.

www.dhandaulat.com is one.

 

Gary99,

Ask Google.

 

You might want to clear that with google. Pretty sure it is not going to fly, even if you name other ads by name.

And as far as I know you can't link to any illegal or against the TOS with adsense. I have specifically asked this of adsense in a particular case and the answer was clear...

So if you want to be sure, check with adsense. If you want to live your life on the edge do things you might think are questionable and just hope nobody notices you.

 

Yeah I might ask at some point, but they seemed pretty clear when they rejected my site first time around. Thanks for the responses.

 

There is a bit of confusion about this clause in the policies - this was something I questioned AdSense about when this change was made.

Don't include incentives on the page for completing surveys. There is probably a grey area when it comes to the content wording, if it could be seen as incentives which could result in "invalid clicks" on the ads. Example, if you write on the page "Get free stuff by completing paid surveys" with the ads right there, it could be seen as incentive based (ie. people are clicking thinking they will get free stuff).

 

Is that a new policy? Never saw it there before.

"Incentives (monetary or point-based) to users or third-party beneficiaries for online activity including, but not limited to, clicking on ads or links, performing searches, surfing websites, reading emails, or completing surveys"

So if you have a forum and give users points for posting, which can be exchanged for something else or used to enter contests you are breaking adsense rules?

 

OK I WROTE TO GOOGLE

This is the reply I have got - IT IS NOT ALLOWED...NO INCENTIVES FOR ANY ACTIVITY...NO LINKS TO SUCH SITES.

I would suggest anyone who has such links , should remove them immediately.

I am quoting the exact reply:

"Thank you for your question. As you noted, it is against out programme
policies to display Google ads on web pages that contain Incentives
(monetary or point-based) to users to click on links or ads while visiting
a site containing Ads. Adding a link to a site offering paid surveys on
your site would therefore constitute a violation of our programme
policies.

Please note that we constantly monitor all of the web pages displaying
Google ads or an AdSense for search box. If we find that one of your web
pages violates our policies, we will notify you and ask you to remove the
Google code from that page."

 

Well it's nice to see them say they will notify you to remove the code and not ban you right away.

Obviouslly it's against TOS to offer incentives to click on ads, but what about other things like just posting on a forum for points? A lot of forums offer points for posting which can be used for one thing or another...

 

Wonder if they're thinking the whole bunch "get paid to do stuff online" sites are just scams. Thus they kind of lump it into the "thou shalt not link to illegal stuff" group.

As I said kind of ironic, since they'll take the money for the ads, they just won't let you make money with them.

Here's my expert analysis:
Google earnings last quarter: $381 million
Google stock price: $335
Google market cap: $93.5 billion

Google can do whatever they like.

When I own a 93 billion dollar company I'll make better rules.

 

It was added a few months ago with the last major policy update.