Adding a "seperator line" between the images and the ad unit does not make your page compliant. If have images aligned with your ad unit to help improve your CTR it is a policy violation.
It seems to me that the only way around this is to become a premium publisher (maybe someday), it seems that anything goes for them. Here is an example: http://www.insiderpages.com/whitepages You get to this page by clicking on the white pages tab on the home page (or any page in the site) and just below the menu you can see what looks like breadcrumbs, but really they are ads. My mouth waters just looking at that one element, there are plenty of things on this website I wish I could do with the ads on my website.
I don't know if anyone has seen the blog post, but google kinda contradict themselves. They say you cannot line images up with ads...however their new "festive" border lined up against sponsored ads in google searches are doing just this! Anyway, I have removed all my images, people need to accept that whatever, having images next to the ads is breaking the policy. Better than loosing your account I guess.
I'm very confused in this time can I do this or can not ??!!! there is line between images and ad's .....so how can I break rule now ?!! ok I will bored that all!And if still that breaking new rule I am done!
ok ,folks! now can somebody post what is can I do now with ad's now? How much near I can put images now ?
The issue here isn't the distance between an image and your ad unit, but it's alignment and intent. If an image serves no purpose other than to draw attention to your ad unit and help improve it's CTR then it is a policy violation. Simple as that.
You CANNOT put images in a placement that appears to attract clicks. Just get rid of the images all together.
I think separator wont work now, It is better to blend them in a nice way, you can get even more CTR by blending.... what if they become strict on using images, there are people who are earning a lot without using images next to ads,
And what if your images DO server another purpose than to draw attention to the ads? In their example about photo sites with thumbnail images, these thumbnails DO serve a different purpose. If you put a BLUE border around 4 different thumbnail images aligned horizontally, and you have a leaderboard underneath this, with a dark RED border around it, would this then fulfill google's wishes by putting a border on your ad and changing the color?
I don't really understand what you're getting at. If you don't have images that draw attention to your ads, you won't have a problem. The thumbnails certainly draw attention to the ad units. The images have quite clearly been aligned next to each link to help improve CTR. In the second example, a border has been drawn around the image and the ad unit making them appear to be one. If this isn't drawing attention to your ads, I don't know what is.
All I know is no matter what the image was that I had next to my ads, I saw a significant increase in my CTR. Therefore I've removed them no questions asked. And so far it doesn't seem to have made a big difference but we'll see how it plays out down the road.
Still Im pretty sure if Google see a site with good content, they wont simply push the red BAN button. Id guess they will contact the publisher, asking him to change it. Because lets face it, google still want those good content sites to have googles ads.
You and the others who are removing their images are smart. But there will always be folks who try to find loopholes (that they justify in their own minds) and push things to the limit. However, since no one knows exactly where that limit is, some will push too far and will be gone. But that's OK . . . the people who push things too far and get banned help the rest of us get a better idea about where that limit is <g>.
go read this for a better understanding http://adsense.blogspot.com/2006/12/ad-and-image-placement-policy.html
Trisha you have a black line seperating them anyways so I think you are safe and it is clear you are not trying to decieve people into clicking your ads, I think. You could use the longer adsense banner that shows 4 ads instead of two? That is the only thing that might lead someone to believe you are trying to line up your ads. Mmmm, now I have read more posts and folks are saying the G does not consider the 'line' good enough. They might very well find you in breach then. IMO if you used the longer ad unit it would be fine. It seems that G is going to really crack down hard on folks using tricks to improve ctr and that is great news!!
Google is clear at this point. I think they never managed to show clear examples the way they did this time! They even mentioned the listing ads (when you have listings and you stylize them like google ads)