I didn't see anything about this specifically listed in the AdSense TOS, but I might have missed it. I'm growing a subscriber list (so far about 500 people) that I communicate with regularily. Would it be a no no for me to remind them maybe in a PS to be sure and check out the ads on the pages when they visit my site and click on any they're interested in? Just a thought, and not something I'm going to do if it's a bad thing. I'm just now getting to the point where I'm seeing some decent revenue from AdSense, so I certainly don't want to get banned or anything. Thanks. jh
Is this the portion of TOS you're basing that on? It looks like to me they're just trying to prevent automated, decpetive, fraudulent or other invalid means of course the 64,000 question is what does "other invalid means" include. If I say be sure and check out my ad to see if anything interests you, does that fall under "other invalid means"? It's not like I would be referring to a specific ad or even placing the suggestion anywhere on my site. It would be a general comment in an email. Guess I would have to ask Google to get the official answer, but I just wanted to know if this has every come up before. I searched the forum before asking, but didn't see anything. To be honest I'm a little nervous about asking Google for clariffication on borderline issues as I've got it in my head they will think I'm someone they need to "keep an eye on" in the future! Thanks, jh
Telling anyone to check out your ads is a total violation. It is better for you if you just updated your site and told your subscribers to go look at the site update. But be aware that this will cause a traffic spike, may put up a red flag and get you banned. If you are going to use this technique, it is best that you do it regularly, and have a visible subscription sign up on your page, so if google does disable your account you can appeal it and tell them that you get traffic from email update notifications.
Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. I am here to learn from those more experienced and knowledgable. This isn't something I would do without asking first, so I'm glad I asked. Incidently I do have a sign-up form on my homepage, but I've been thinking about adding it to all of my pages. jh
it's good that you are asking before you are actually do it. In my opinion and like other, do not ask your visitors to click on the ads. Although you can make them want to click on the ads themselve. This part, i'm also trying to find out how. You may want to use your subscriber list to increase more come back visitors and hence out of those 500 users, there may be 10% of them that would eventually click on that ads.