Web Marketing Strategy Update

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:

“Publishers should also be careful to avoid similar implementations that people could find misleading. For instance, if your site contains a directory of Flash games, you should not format the ads to mimic the game descriptions.”

It’s hard to escape the conclusion from that example that blending ads to look like navigation links, etc., could also be considered unacceptable …

I should imagine other ad networks like YPN will also take the same line. For example, on Clicksor today I noticed this:

“Clicksor has prohibited the use of images directly beside text ads.
Dear Publishers,

Clicksor.com is announcing that all publishers are not allowed to line up images and ads in ways that suggest a direct relationship between the two. Clicksor.com is banning this activity to avoid any negative experiences for users and advertisers. Publishers who violate the above rule will be suspended. Earnings generated by publishers performing such activities will be withheld.”

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:

• 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.
  
• 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.
• Use the preferred domain feature of webmaster tools:
  If if inbound links use both the www and non-www version of your URLs, you can let us know which way you prefer your site to be indexed.
• Minimize boilerplate repetition:
  For instance, instead of including lengthy copyright text on the bottom of every page, include a very brief summary and link to a page with more details.
• Avoid publishing stubs:
  Users don’t like seeing “empty” pages, so avoid placeholders. Either don’t publish or block pages with zero reviews, no real estate listings, etc., to remove instances of “Below you’ll find a list of all the great rental opportunities in [insert cityname]…” with no actual listings.
• Understand your CMS:
  Be familiar with how content is displayed on your Web site, especially if it includes a blog, a forum, or similar system that displays the same content in multiple formats.
• Don’t worry be happy:
  Don’t fret about sites that scrape (misappropriate and republish) your content. It’s highly unlikely that such sites can negatively impact your site’s presence in Google.