Google Changes TOS Yet One More Time

Before you know it, it will be all over the net: Google changed it’s TOS yet one more time. And God forbid things are getting any easier for us.

So what is it this time:

Basically, you can’t run (on any page of your web site) AdSense ads that can be mistaken with other ads, whether from other networks (contextual or not) or your own ads. (For a detailed explanation, please read Jennifer Slegg’s article)

I guess when you’re the big boss and own most of the market, you can do whatever you want.

I don’t even want to think about all them poor guys and girls who hand build each and everyone of their pages (yes my friend, there’s still plenty of folks out there who do that). In case they have pages on which AdSense ads can be mistaken for other ads, they’ll have to solve the problem individually on each and every one of them (in many cases a few good hundreds). Good luck to them.

This decision on Google’s part can be determined by two factors: pride (how dare everyone else copy my idea, at least show some originality and have your own ad designs) - which, although hard to believe, not impossible - as well as an economical one.

Lets talk about the latter. As Jennifer points out, since Google is the leading ad program for many web masters, they will take all the necessary steps to be in compliance with the network (remember the movie that featured a network that controlled everything and everyone? Hmmm… :)) In the same time, most webmasters will choose to keep schemes that have the highest CTR for the Google ads and change those from other networks to some lower CTR schemes. It’s only a matter of 1+1=2 to realize that this (while it might not necessarily highly increase Google’s revenue in the short term) will decrease the competition’s income. And we all know a weak competition is a desired goal.

On the long run, I suspect many webmasters might even be inclined to drop some of the other networks as they might consider these ads a waste of space on their pages as their performance could be highly impacted (space which might be better used - either for other type of ads or for more content or even for more AdSense ads). Now this translates into higher revenue for Google. Touche! Nicely done guys!

Update: apparently the devil is not as dark as it seemed at first. However, you should read Darren’s post all the way to the end (even the comments); you should make sure that you don’t brake the TOS of those ad networks you’ll be using besides AdSense; and finally, yet probably most importantly, use common sense. If you realize that certain positioning would be questionable, unless you can get a clear answer from both networks that “yes, you can position them like that” (or something similar), I would rather give up on it. It’s better than not being paid. You might get away with it for some time, however, in the end you’ll get caught. And you might have to pay back everything you earned. As I always say, better safe than sorry.

Posted in Learn from Others, WAH News |