I decided I would try increase my CTR by placing small images near my ads [with borders] I've seen many sites do it and thought it worth a try. I made the script and installed the pictures and all was good, my CTR went up so I was very happy. Not wishing to have my pants pulled down by Google though I dropped an email to Adsense to check it was ok but got an email back saying it broke TOS. I didn't get banned, obviously because I checked with them first. I thought I would just give a heads up to anyone who currently does this or who is thinking about this that Yes it seems to work, and Yes it breaks Google TOS [or at least my implementation did] so be careful. Pic attached
ads in that picture is against the adsense tos. read http://adsense.blogspot.com/2006/12/ad-and-image-placement-policy.html
Yous should remove it as soon as you can. I doubt they will ban you outright as its quite a new policy of theirs, but they will send a warning email.
You can put images, but ads and image must have borders. And thematic of image must be different from text showing in ad.
Since the image is about the same height as the ad unit and is perfectly aligned it is misleading to your visitors. They are more likely to make the incorrect assumption that the ad and image are related, therefore not permitted. Putting a black frame around such a dark image makes not one jot of difference.
LOL yes you would have though they would have appreciated it - nevermind Yes I know it breaks TOS [now anyway] and they are removed, I posted really as a reminder to anyone thinking of doing it...that basically you shouldn't! Although as previously stated I have seen this trick on many sites, I guess google will catch up to them sooner or later!
Google should really consider giving Adwords users the option to place thumbnails. Personally, I don't even notice adwords ads anymore (probably because I use adsense & adwords, and I'm ad-blind).
even the seperator is not advised anymore. Images aligned with the ads in any way are against TOS now. Google is extremely relevant on my site as to the ads shown. I could show relavant images most of the time and it would work well, but the end result would be the advertiser getting unwarranted clicks.
Still there are 2 opinions surrounding placing images next to ads (though adsense team clearsup) some people mailed them on this issue with their website and few accepted and few are not, so the ball is on their court, better mail them with your site and confirm with them, there are no people can tell exactly on this particular issue..