A DigitalPoint Forums thread discusses a blog post by the Google AdSense team about how to avoid accidental clicks on campaigns. Ads placed in the following areas are more susceptible to be clicked, according to the Google AdSense team, and this is discouraged if the users do not have interest in the product being advertised:
- In close proximity to Macromedia Flash games
- Under pop-ups or download prompts
- Near site navigation controls on your pages, such as drop-downs or menu links
The announcement adds that "if we detect enough of these clicks and determine that the risk to our advertisers is too great, we may disable the account."
This discussion continues in a Google Groups thread which was started by Google representative AdSensePro.
Some excellent follow-up questions are being asked, especially this one, which has not yet been answered:
The blog entry says: "Some implementations that could lead to accidental clicks include placing your ads ... (n)ear site navigation controls on your pages, such as drop-downs or menu links"It seems to go against the advice on your own optimization page (https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=17954&topic=8437) , which says:
"Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page."
So which is it? Do we place ads near navigation or not?
The confusion is echoed on DigitalPoint:
I hope they provide some examples of what's okay and what's not, because there could be some considerable gray area with this.
There is no official follow-up on clarification of these gray areas, so if you have any questions about the placement of your ads, you can still join the discussion monitored by Google in Google Groups or at DigitalPoint Forums.
