Archive for December, 2006
Friday, December 22nd, 2006
Google Bans Images Adjacent To Adsense Ads
In what’s going to be a huge disappointment to a lot of Adsense users, Google have announced that placing images adjacent to Adsense ads “in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads” are violating the Adsense TOS.
Many webmasters have been placing small images to the side of their Adsense ad blocks because it’s been found to increase ad clicks.
Now that’s over.
From Ad and image placement: a policy clarification on the Adsense blog:
“We ask that publishers not line up images and ads in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads. If your visitors believe that the images and the ads are directly associated, or that the advertiser is offering the exact item found in the neighboring image, they may click the ad expecting to find something that isn’t actually being offered. That’s not a good experience for users or advertisers.”
Google also provide 2 familiar-looking examples “that wouldn’t comply with our policies.”
This short paragraph in the middle of the post is potentially more worrying though, and suggests publishers may be on shaky ground with many of the tactics they currently use to increase CTR:
1 Comment » - Posted in PPC Advertising, Google Adsense Tips by Azam
Thursday, December 21st, 2006
Duplicate Content & Google
A post on the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog provides some insight into Google’s views on duplicate content. It addresses the following questions:
- What is duplicate content?
- What isn’t duplicate content?
- Why does Google care about duplicate content?
- What does Google do about it?
Most interesting of all though, is the section, “How can Webmasters proactively address duplicate content issues?” sumarized below:
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Block appropriately:
Rather than letting algorithms determine the “best” version, guide to your preferred version. For instance, if you don’t want us to index the printer versions of your site’s articles, disallow those directories or make use of regular expressions in your robots.txt file. -
Use 301s:
If you have moved pages on your site, use 301 redirects (”RedirectPermanent”) in your .htaccess file.
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Be consistent:
Keep your internal linking consistent. Don’t link to “/page/” and “/page” and “/page/index.html.” -
Use TLDs:
Use top level domains whenever possible for country-specific content. We’re more likely to know that .de indicates Germany-focused content, for instance, than /de or de.example.com. -
Syndicate carefully:
If you syndicate your content, ensure every article includes a link back to the original. Even with that, we’ll always show the (unblocked) version we think most appropriate in any given search.
