Google Updated it’s Adsense Program Policy page

So if I read this correctly you can only have AdSense and YPN on the same site if they use different colors and do not look the same. I make most of contextual ad revenue from the big G so will have to ugly up my YPN to keep them on the sites.

 

Trippen, I think you are right. "ugly up my YPN" - that's exactly what I am doing.
But I'm confused about the details. I have been thinking about the ban on similar ads. Here are a few more questions regarding the "user confusion" issue -
Speculation about what will comply, and what will not -

http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/adsense-tos-changes.htm

Please offer your comments about this BIG change.

 

I like the page Surf_Dude. I have the same types of questions.

The other factor that I have questions about is time based. Can we switch back and forth between identical looking ads - display AdSense one day and the YPN the next day? Can we switch every hour?

I've sent AdSense support an email about all this. I'll let you know if they get back to me.

 

That IS huge. I only use Google Adsense on my pages as well... but I'm always waiting for the day they just randomly delete me.

But you know what.. That's the day YPN will immediately takes it's place on my site.

I'm not as happy with Google as I used to be. I still love em though. They're definitely trying to capitalize unfairly.

 

I have no special info and can only guess... perhaps YPN is coming out of beta and they're doing this as a defensive move to prevent largescale A/B testing. Or perhaps this is just one part of their larger fight against MFA sites... so much of Google's income depends on AdSense these days that they have to take small steps to fix things without spooking publishers too much and causing part of their revenue stream to dry up.

Pure supposition on my part.

 

Thanks for let me know it

 

ya know... I read and reread this statement... the key is the ads MUST look different... push the envelope, and Google may push you out. But here's the catch... can anyone find where it says that ads from BOTH companies (Google and Yahoo) can no longer be used on the same page?

So as long as I have totally different looking ads... I can use BOTH companies ads on a page at the same time? So a 300x250 Google ad melded into the colors of the site at the top of the content section, and a 728x90 block of Yahoo ads with contrasting colors and a border at the bottom of the content could be used together on the same page?

 

Does this mean a static text link ad with description which looks similar to adsense that I have on my site now violates AdSense policy?

If yes, I'll seriously consider dumping adsense from that space and sell a couple of more of those manual text link ads with description.

 

Too much is put into adsense but for most webmasters the return is low.

 

You took the words right out of my keyboard.

Google has become the M$ of the 2000's. Their attitude and behavior is basically the same as M$ gobbling up companies that produced better software than they did (Berkley System's Geoworks OSE in the early 90's that could actually multitask on an 8088 chip so they could not have to compete with Windows 3.0, their snookering of IBM by stealing OS/2 code and then rolling out Windows NT, buying out Fox and plugging (or mangling) their code into Access etc. etc. etc.)

While M$ is pretty much irrelevant nowadays, Google seems to think that they control not only most user searches, while trying to become a major player via email, blogging and shopping they now have the nerve to try to dictate what type of advertising people can put on website that they own and pay for, not Google. Hell, we are doing Google a favor by using them to advertise in the first place, since they make a hell of a lot more money from it then 99% of the people who use AdSense in the first place.

As for "do no evil", that is about as believable as "I did not have sex with that woman". As Jen Laycock wrote about last May over at SearchEngineGuide.com, AdSense targets and displays the type of advertising that they want to appear on sites, a lot of times irregardless of the actual site's content. For example, one of my sites is a political forum BB that leans conservative. However, virtually all of the ads that AdSense displays there are of a liberal nature. Even when filtering out the various URLs of a liberal nature, they at times come right back within a few days or another URL with the same type of message or political bent takes it's place. I do not find that to be a coincidence.

I am frankly tired of Google and their attitude and practices and am looking to dump AdSense for something both more profitable and whose TOS is not straight out of the Kremlin in CA.

 

That's an interesting point, since you're right in that the new program policies don't have the "no other contextual ads" restriction that the old policies had. This may be an oversight on their part, I'd stay away from mixing Yahoo and Google. (And what do the YPN terms say about the matter?)

 

YPN terms do not allow this:

 

Sheesh, yet another list of policies that fail to actually answer questions while creating even more confusion.

 

Ooops, silly me, should have remembered that the ban against other contextual services is actually in the Terms and Conditions, not in the Program Policies. It's still there, so no go, even if YPN's terms allowed it (which, as I expected, they don't...)

 

Wait until you get a personnal information from adsense, who is supposed to read forums? wait until a warning, this goes for everything except clicking on your own ads!

 

Apparently Google is changing the terms and conditions to allow other contextual ads to co-exist with AdSense. See JenSense's post for the details.

 

Thanks for the information....

 

Thanks for the alert Eric... hadn't been back to Jan's blog yet today... hmmm... I guess I wasn't the only one who noticed the obvious lack of that restriction...

I'm quite sure, but not positive, it was also originally in the Program Policy page until this update...

I expect Yahoo will quickly follow suit as the change benefits them as much as it benefits Google...

 

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