In July 2006 I purchased a small script site which got a PR 3 in September. I haven't looked back at it except for checking if the site was up and running. Today though I received the following email: On the site are no images whatsoever. The text size on the site was significantly larger than the size of text on the adsense ads. The only thing that could have been wrong was that the ads were with no borders, and with the same BG color as the rest of the site, and the text black as the text on the site - so was it maybe blended too much? And is there now too much of blending according to their new TOS? What I did was change the background color and the color of the Title and the URL of the ads. After that I wrote back that I made some changes and if they could get back to me if the changes are considered ok and enough for the site. I'll keep you posted on the answer when I get it. In the mean time I am going to check all my sites and make changes where I feel like there is too much or too good blending... Thanks
Were you drawing attention to the ads at all like "check out this post:" or something and then an ad?
It looks like they're saying that you can't blend ads any more, which is perculiar to say the least because the AdSense site recommends optimisation by blending: "To blend, make the background and borders of your ads the same color as the background of your page where the ad is placed." I'm getting really pissed off with AdSense and Google as a whole - what right have they got to start dictating to people how they arrange their web pages?.
I bet you made your ads look like part of the site navigation. That's a problem. Uh..advertisers complaining? Adsense leads for more crappy clicks than adwords does. Clicks that don't convert. Blending, misleading placement, images next to ads all contribute to this. If advertisers in large numbers opt out of "content" ads you won't have any ads to show. This isn't just about your site and layout. It's about the advertisers right not to have their money, essentially, taken from them with no return.
Hello again The answer arrived and they pointed out to me the following after I told them that I changed the colors of the title and URL: What I did do now is place extra space between the adsense ad and the link where it saiz: "Please click here if you want to try the test again." I also made the word HERE bolded and wrote it in caps. And wrote back about what I changed, asking if it was enough. If not, I said, I'll take the ad off from the page alltogether. So it was not the too good of blending that was on the pages, but this particular page and the link to try the test again. Will keep you posted about their answer when it comes. Have a great weekend everyone!
The last changes that I described above were not good enough for the Adsense team, and I ended up taking off their ad on this particular page. After telling them that I removed the ad off there, this is the received answer: All in all everything was solved and even though this one page has no longer adsense on it - I placed an other ad instead. It is not the too much or too good blending that we do on pages serving adsense, but the use of specific words that could cause a problem, and we being contacted with an email as the 1st one I copied above. From now on I know on which type of sites and where on these - NOT to place adsense - script sites with clickable links that you specify with: "...click here if you want to try the test again." Have a nice weekend