Sex, drugs and Rock & Roll (ok, not rock & roll)

According to the program policies, the following are NOT allowed...


Sites with Google ads may not include or link to:

• Pornography, adult or mature content
• Violent content
• Content related to racial intolerance or advocacy against any individual, group or organisation
• Excessive profanity
• Hacking/cracking content
• Gambling or casino-related content
• Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia content
• Content regarding programs which compensate users for clicking ads or offers, performing searches, surfing websites or reading emails
• Any other content that is illegal, promotes illegal activity or infringes on the legal rights of others

However, look here at DP and see just how many threads discuss marijuana, gambling, and other things that fit well within the above.

Do You Think Marijuana Shoud Be Legal Or Not?
Yes or No to marijuana legalization?
Happy 420 day! For all us Marijuana activists.

All three of those threads certainly promote the use of pot, and certainly contain content related to the titles of the thread. Are they against the program policies?

Why isnt' DP banned, or is the discussion of such things OK, so long as it is not the actual doing/selling/whatever them?

 

what about the images in sexy magazine covers, are those against the TOS?

 

I've taken to looking in Google's help for the answer, but am not finding anything concrete (as in, official) however, I have found this answers...

Does that place the New York Times in danger?

I'm certainly NOT finding a definitive answer for this....is there any one that can help?

I am NOT trying to point the finger at DP or NYT for breaking the guidelines, just using them as examples for my question (mainly because I don't want to use the examples of my own forum in this instance).

So where is the line drawn between simply discussing such things as sex, drugs, gun control, etc and promoting them?

 

I think it has to do with whether it's a premium publisher (New York Times definitely is) and what percentage of the site has the non-allowed content. A few threads out of thousands is probably fine. A whole subforum on drugs almost certainly is not.

 

I didn't want to take any chances with getting banned from Adsense due to discussing these things on my own forum, so yesterday I simply removed all of the ads from my forum.

*shrug*

I think I'm better off without the worry.

 

These TOS are obviously just guidelines, to protect them. For example, a website solely on drug intake and sex would not be appropriate.

However a quality site with the odd content on such topics, would be fine.

 

While I'd be inclined to believe that, you'd be amazed at the complete lack of answers on the subject from authorized personal

I'd just assume not take any chances.

To off set the loss of income, I have asked for donations and for members to become "gold members" and as such have earned more in a day then I have in nearly a year... so in a way it's win/win and a win/lose for the big G.

 

It seems that Google hate being specific to subjects like this - I don't know if it's because thye are being lazy, untrained, or just don't want to reveal such info.

Out of interest, what site is it you're referring to?

 

I assume it would be the last one, and it does make sense that they are NOT giving the answer. If they said it was OK, then more people would be doing it. As it stands, most folks say "OH NOES u will get BAALETED" and that's likely how google wants it... it's a way to watch their own backs *shrug* But it really is nerve racking from the publisher end.

Occult Corpus It's got around 50 threads that discuss drugs, mostly for shamanic journey, or reaching magickal plateaus and 3 or 4 that talk about tantric magick (sex magick/energy). *shrug* Not many when compared to 5,841 on the site, but seemingly enough to get all of my sites banned!

About a thousand impressions daily, with generally a click or three... gone But like I said, it's safer for the open discussion, and with me saying what I've done on the forums, it's generated more then those impressions/clicks from the last year. I'm more then happy with switching back to 100% member driven rather then the 60/40 it has been with ads displayed. *shrug*

 

well google loves DP so they dont Ban DP ..

 

They certainly don't love us like they used too... that or maybe shawn has downed the %s we are getting though the rev_sharing

But yeah, that was why I used the DP in my original examples. Had I not pulled the ads from my site I'd have not shared it (not that it's all that hard to find).

 

its just discussion on DP

 

I agree, especially in a forum setting where users add there own "content" and opinions. You can't hold the owner 100% accountable for such things. The site itself is not promoting things, just maybe a visitorsaid something about it and the owner can't always help that. Also, just asking whether marijuana should be legalized is not promoting it. I think even if you say "yes it should be legalized" unless you're seriously trying to push it on people with where to send payment or something

 

What is that supposed to mean? Of course it's just a discussion... but its a discussion about things that happen to be against the program policies on a page with my adsense code. If that were a valid excuse, then I could also say "I was just discussing people clicking my ads"

In one of the help pages from google, it said that *I* am responsible for ALL pages my ads are shown on. Hence, if a member promotes the use of drugs and I am allowing it to happen on a page I own, then in the eyes of google I could be liable for that. Again, Google is NOT being completely clear on the matter...

 

they are manual checking this kind of keywords and they are always checking is it worth or not, this is what they are saying signification risk, example if you are selling medicines that for pregnancy and you are teaching visitors some kama sutra pose with nude photo for get resolve the sexual problem is not well for decent audience but in fact you were telling true but adsense don't like it.

 

Would it conform to the guidelines to place such threads/content to a members only location without ads?

As in, can things against the ToS be put on the site, but not the pages?