Hi all! Let's say I do this. It's all theoretical, I tried to come up with the maximum blended ad I could imagine. On the right side of the pageview, I have my menu It is made of 5-7 section links The section link is like a Google Text Ad: A link, two lines of text and the URL They are for other parts of my website. As in: Wanna know more about Widgets? Widgets Info Here you can find information About Widgets and more http://www.example.com/widgets/info/ How much does widgets cost? Widgets Prices See how much the Widgets Are costing around the World http://www.example.com/widgets/prices/ Ads by Goooooooogle AdSense for Widgets But it looks like an item From my website's menu. http://www.google.com/adsense/ Looking for more widgets? Similar Widgets Search our database of hundreds of Widgets and find the right one for you http://www.example.com/widgets/search/ I will randomly inject the AdSense ad in position 1-7. That means it could appear first, or second, or third, etc... The sections don't need to be static. For example, on a forum board, I could display links to the latest messages and inject AdSense somewhere on the list People try to make AdSense similar to their colors and layout, but how about making your website similar to AdSense? Do you think I could be banned? There's nothing against blending on TOS (afaik) but this would be *very* misleading! It's so evil I am not sure I would even do it... but what do you think?
Alright, thanks you two, just did that... gave the URL to Google for a fake-page asking if it's alright. I don't think it is, I mean, it's misleading. On the other hand, I am not violating the TOS (at least no direct, easily verifiable clauses) The problem is that if they answer "no, you will get banned" I am going to send a hundred variations asking if any is good until I have a firm position of what's cool and what isn't... can't depend on the mood of a Google police enforcer that can suddenly decide I've broken the rules
get you put on some sort of red flag list at google. Sending them hundreds of requests as to, is this okay? Just be like everyone else, build the site, use the code correctly and move on. Seems you are just trying to find a way to scam adsense or your visitors.
I agree with iowadawg. This proposal blends the ads into the menu in a manner which makes it impossible to know which is which. Consequently, people will click on ads thinking they are linking into your site. The net result is people are going to accidentally end up at advertiser's sites, which you like because you get paid, but advertisers do not like because they get confused visitors who hit the back button or otherwise exit a site to which they did not intend to go. If I were a visitor to such a site, I would not return. And most likely I would never miss such a site because the owner is putting all their time into figuring out how to manipulate advertisers rather than serve the needs of visitors.
i think it's unethical. after all, even though you didn't break the TOS, you will be misleading your visitors, clicking on something they thought that wasn't.
Of course you can get banned. If someone contacts google about this you can get banned. You will be surprised when you see google banning speed.