my ad placement

I have some google ads placed really close to my menu bar on my Sports Forum Is this considered exceptable?

not sure if this was the right forum

 

I think that is fine. I don't see any TOS in that. As long as it integrates well with the site. Sure users might accidentally click on the ads every once in a while. And you might accidentally make a little extra money. Anyone else?

 

the link colors are different - should be ok ...

 

thanks for the comments guys

 

I would change the link colors to match the current link color of your site. But if you find that you have a higher click thru ratio as it is now, then don't mind me.

 

having the links match is ok? No TOS issues?

 

having ads is great, but i don't want to disguise them to "fool" my users. I'll keep them the way they are now.

 

It's a touchy subject. I think it is always better to be safe than to be banned.

 

At the The Google AdSense Bay Area Forum - hosted by GOOGLE on their campus....

This was said about featured speaker Dr. Cheng Wu - eFunda.COM:

"He had tried several placement and coloration strategies. None of them made a difference, until this one simple change.

What was the change? To make sure the colors did not have "frames" in the ad units, and to as much as possible blend the ad units with the content.

He called it tricking their readers into believing the ad units were simply part of the site. He talked of a phone call he received of someone wishing to order a half a ton of copper, because the illusion was so strong."

This was said about Chris Prillo as well:

"He also tries to make the adsense ad units invisible, blending it in with the content. He uses a large rectangle inline with the content, coloring it to blend with the background, and no borders or frames."

I'd post the url to the site where I read all of this - but this forum won't allow me to post live links yet.

.....

The guy that turned me onto adsense is Joel Comm. When I saw a screen shot of his google check that was for $18k, I figured I could do the same and set out a goal to exceed his monthly earnings.

I won't do it this month (April) as my earnings are just above $8,000 - but I'm on track to do double my April amount in May.

Here's my advice. Read the TOS. It's there for you to read. Does it state that it's against the TOS to make the link color match your site's format?

The featured speaker at the google forum HOSTED by GOOGLE on their campus matches his link color to the links on his site at eFunda.COM .

Enough said.

 

Interesting. I've wondered about whether it was more effective to have the ads stand out or blend in.

 

It's a fine line i think. I want to have as many clicks as possible, but i don't want my visitors to click the link believing it is part of my site, and not an ad.

 

That's great! Glad to know I was able to help you out.

For the record, I am seeing the best clickthroughs on BLUE links (#0000FF), REGARDLESS of the link colors on the page. People know traditional blue and they like to click blue

Joel

 

i'll try the blue on a couple pages tonight