Is this allowed?

I found 3 website that uses this method to display AdSense Ads and i'm not sure if this is now against the AdSense TOS or not. What do you people think about this?

 

WOAAA@!!! I too highlighted this the other day and I CANNOT BELIEVE that Forbes.com is attempting or being allowed to get away with it! What value is offered to the user? NONE!
Folks check out forbes.com as that's where this is displayed. Whatever forbes page you land on you are presented with this prior to accessing the content! Might as well put a foot high banner up saying "NO ACCESS UNLESS YOU CLICK ON THIS AD!"
If any of us tried it we'd be banned in an instant! How on earth does that meet TOS? Or website quality guidelines?

 

if forbes is doing this, they might have come up with some agreement with google for sure. But then google should not be discriminatory.

 

The only way you would get away with this is if you do have an agreement with the Adsense team.

With Forbes being such a large community with targeted traffic there is not much of an issue with an advertisement being displayed like this because Google knows it still provides value for their own clients.
The reason it is against their TOS for the average website is because Google knows well enough that it will likely be abused and not provide value for their clients.

 

It's an odd ruling, and for adsense sets a precedent as it's normally one rule for all of us, certainly when it comes to placement. Sure some of the adsense partners have different fonts, numbers of ads etc. but this is the first time I've seen them allow something that nobody else would be allowed. Thing is if an advertiser complains about the ad placement, then what are they going to do. As normally such complaints by advertisers result in a ban. I used to sell "ear candles" online many years ago, and when tracking back my adwords traffic was horrified to see my ad running on a site about how to make Crystal Meth. Only time I've reported a site as an advertiser but no way did I want associating with that. Same in this instance, if I saw my ad on Forbes site I'd be questioning the value it gives me as an advertiser e.g. I don't mind my add showing on a page about ear candles as the content warms the buyer up in to buying mode, but the way they display it has no content.

 

The difference here is that I doubt anyone would really complain about have an advertisement on Forbes, let alone a full page for it... that's what they are paying for.

Think of it this way, the advertiser is not losing money from doing this. 90% of the internet users have seen ads displayed like this before and they know they can just continue to the content. If by chance a visitor is legitimately interested in the advert then the advertiser is receiving a genuine lead.
It's a win for everyone, Forbes, Google, Advertiser and the visitor.

At the end of the day Google is a company, and just like all companies their purpose is to build an income in one way or another. If they wan't to provide an exemption from their TOS for certain people if they know it will benefit them and their clients than they can.

 

We all know that displaying Ads like this will generate more useless CTR's it's a win for Google and Publisher but not for the Advertisers.

 

If Forbes is doing this then they must have some agreement with Google. This is true that is Google is allowing this then this is not a fair policy. Because advertisers are the looser in this case. They will pay money for each click. Google will get money for each click. Visitors will just get annoyed.

 

Fobes being a big site should have direct contact with adsense teams. If small publisher did that, a ban would be eminent.