Some inappropriate Google ad placements

One of the most common trick being employed by publishers using Google Adsense as a revenue model is to place Google ads that have maximum chances of accidental clicks. While it is a good idea to blend the ads well with the content, certain ad placements can land a publisher in some trouble with Google.

Before continuing any further, I would like to add that Google has two sets of rules. To premium publishers, earning beyond a certain sum, Google does provide a relationship manager and allows the sites to display more units of ads as well as allows the ads in such a way that “Ads by Google” word gets hidden. The idea being shared today is to warn against certain placements that are against the Google terms of service.
Google has its own methods of locating ads at inappropriate places to locate ads that could lead visitor to click on the ad unit without meaning to do so. Such clicks are eliminated out of total publisher revenue.
Some examples of such ad placements are
1. Having an ad unit in close proximity to Macromedia Flash games
2. Ad unit Under pop-ups or download prompts ; or
3. Having an ad unit near site navigation controls on your pages, or too close to drop-downs or menu links
Not many web masters may be aware that Google has mechanism to detect such placements that can grab accidental clicks. Such placements are against the Google terms of service and such tricks could get a site punished for doing so.
Google expects publishers to integrate their units in such a way that blends with the content to give supplementary information to the visitor by Google serving relevant ads based on keyword density.
Google bog has also clarified the optimized ad placement giving some acceptable and unacceptable implementations and states that “"You can understand that increasing the possibility of accidental clicks on your sites is not in the best interest of users or advertisers, and we wanted to make you aware of this risk.” It continues to add, “This is why we ask that you maintain sufficient distance between your ads and any elements of your page on which users may often click."
From experiences gathered through various forums and from one of personal friend of mine, who lost his Adsense account, I can say with fair degree of conviction that Google is watching such tricks of getting accidental clicks through element placement. If you are employing such tricks, better beware, these may not last long.
About the Author: Ms Kelly, is associate professor, at ICAI, Calgary and a guest contributor. She is also regular contributor of business articles at www.b2blounge.com