Google Brand Features
Last week I posted about a website that intrigued me - iotaweb.org. without repeating the entire post, it's a site that displays the prices publishers pay for AdWords. Amazingly, this in itself is not against the Google, AdWords or AdSense TOS. I conversed with Tony, the owner of the site quite a few times, and he assured me he had done his homework and all was well. From my conversations with him he seems to be a nice and sincere guy, with an interesting blog I enjoyed reading. After our talks I had no reason not to believe him (and for the record, I still do).
However, when checking his site two days ago I noticed that while his AdSense code was in place, no ads were being displayed - a tell tale sign of a banned website and/or account. After removing the iotaweb widget from AdSense bits, I talked with Tony about the situation. While ads were no longer showing on iotaweb.org, his other sites were fine.
In the spirit of AdSensebits.com, I went to the source. At first I think Google was confused at what I was asking, but a return reply cleared it all up.
He also has a revenue sharing program where any visitors to his site that are referred, have a chance of displaying the referrers AdSense code. I know that revenue sharing is o.k. so I put it on my site.
I just noticed today however, that although his AdSense code is still integrated on the website, he is not displaying any ads at all. This
leads me to believe his account, iotaweb.org, or both, have been suspended.
For precaution, I took the referrer link off my website just in case.
I would like to know if iotaweb.org is in fact in violation of Google or AdSense TOS, and if so in what way.
As always, thank you very much.
Thank you for your email. Because we respect the confidentiality of all publishers, we cannot disclose any additional details of our partnerships with other sites.
We understand that you would like to have more traffic visiting your site. However, we do not endorse or encourage the use of any traffic exchange programs for this purpose.
We recommend that you exercise caution when using traffic exchange programs to ensure that you do not violate the AdSense Terms and Conditions and that you do not artificially inflate your page views or clicks. Please note that AdSense participants are solely responsible for verifying that any tools or software used in conjunction with AdSense do not violate the AdSense Terms and Conditions.
To protect your interests as well as those of our advertisers, Google monitors clicks and impressions on Google ads to prevent any abuse of the AdSense program. Google's proprietary technology analyzes all ad clicks and impressions for any activity intended to artificially drive up an advertiser's costs or a publisher's earnings.
Clicks or impressions deemed by our monitoring system to be invalid will appear in your reports, but because advertisers are not charged for them, no associated revenue will be shown. Please rest assured that your account is being properly credited for all valid clicks and impressions.
For additional questions, we suggest you visit our AdSense Support site at https://www.google.com/support/adsense . If you're unable to find an answer to your question on our site, please feel free to reply to this email.
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team
I think you misunderstood my last email. I was not referring to a traffic exchange program, I was referring to a revenue sharing program. But thank you for the information regarding traffic exchange programs though. It's something I was aware was not OK, but the clarification is helpful.
That's not truly what I was interested in though. I am more concerned with the legality of sharing the bid amounts of Google AdWords with others, and whether it is against Google's TOS.
Thank you for your continued support.
Thank you for your clarification.
Sites that share Google AdSense keyword prices violate our program policies if they use Google Brand Features, including Google trademarks, logos, web pages, screen shots, or other distinctive features without prior consent from Google. Please also note that we do not endorse or encourage the use of such sites.
To help ensure that your account remains in good standing, we recommend that you review the important AdSense guidelines found here: https://www.google.com/support...answer=23921 .
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team
I wouldn't be surprised if their TOS is updated soon to prevent people from disclosing AdWords amounts in this nature. I can only assume that it was the post about the iotaweb widget on AdSensebits is what caused this (the site received about 30,000 unique visits that week with over 100,000 pageviews), and I hope it hasn't caused Tony any trouble.