Google recently announced that it has modified its Adsense Policy Page and made a few – hopefully helpful – amendments.
The first and probably the most apparent change, for those who visit the policy page on a regular basis, are the changes that have been made to the appearance of the page, as it has undertaken a slight make over.
These changes have been made in conjunction with the customer feedback that Google received about the previous page, to try and improve user satisfaction and make the page easier to navigate.
Another change that the page has encountering is the grouping of the policies for each network, i.e. Content and Search, and they have also added abbreviated descriptions / details about each policy with the option to ‘read more’ if the user chooses to do so.
However the main modifications to the content of the page are as follows:
Google Brand Violations
Although this policy has always been in place, Google has now moved it from the Terms and Conditions page to the ‘Ad Placement’ section, making it easier to find.
This particular policy disallows web pages, that misuse the Google logos, trademark or other brand features, to contain search boxes or ads. This is to prevent these pages from misleading users and implying that the site is associated with Google when they are not.
Deception Implementations
This policy states that ads have to be formatted in a way that makes it obvious that they are in fact Google Ads and that they must be distinguishable from the other content on the page, defined in the ‘Encouraging Clicks’ section of the policy page.
Ad Placements in Emails and Email Programs.
This policy update simply states that no Google ads, search boxes or search results can appear in emails, or alongside emails.
Other Google Products’ Policies.
This new policy prevents publishers from placing ads, search boxes and search results on, within or alongside other Google products that would violate the policies of the other product.
For example, the new policy would stop publishers from placing ads on web sites that allow users to download YouTube videos, as this would infringe the YouTube Terms of Service.
Other small updates that have been installed are the additional information that has been added to the ‘Webmasters Guidelines’ and also the creation of the new ‘Traffic Sources’ section.
So why not visit the policies page and see the updates for yourself, if you haven’t already of course.