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.”