Google Adsense Ads Below Post Titles Not Allowed

August 26th, 2008

Most blogs place Google Adsense Ads below the post title and above article content, to get better ad visibility and a higher clickthrough rate to make more money, but it is not always allowed as per Google Adsense policies. We recently got an email from Adsense support pointing out this issue on our site.

Google had earlier clarified some commonly encountered issues and one of them was “Ads shouldn’t be placed under a title or section heading in a way that implies that the ads are not ads.” They showed this example violating the terms, where the ads are places directly below the post title.

Adsense Violation

Also note that Google Adsense program policies, clearly say that Publishers participating in the AdSense program -

May not encourage users to click the Google ads by using phrases such as “click the ads,” “support us,” “visit these links,” or other similar language
May not place misleading labels above Google ad units - for instance, ads may be labeled “Sponsored Links” but not “Favorite Sites”

Post titles can violate Adsense Guidelines

Post titles act as labels - If you have posts titles like “Hot deals of the day”, or “Best Articles of June”, or “3 best imaging software”, or “download vista now”, then the targeted ads that appear beneath these articles can truly mislead visitors to click these ads and inflate advertiser costs.

Blogs are different - But since bloggers place the adsense code in the blog template, it is difficult to tweak the placement on every post. Of course you can change selected titles so that it has a lesser clicking impact, but it is difficult to optimize hundreds of article titles.

What can you do - Most blogs insert Date and Categories beneath the Post title which separate the ads. But apparently this is not enough, as they informed me that the title can still mislead visitors to click. They advised that “publishers may not label the Google ads with text other than ’sponsored links’ or ‘advertisements’. Inadvertently the blog post titles were acting as a labels above the ads. Thus to comply with the terms, we had to introduce the word “Advertisements” over our Adsense units, when they cleared the issue.

Its too common - As I browse around popular blogs, there are many blogs that place ads directly under titles, or place title, date and categories above the ads. This has obviously been inspired by the Adsense optimization chart which prompts you to place ads above your primary content.

I thank the Google enforcement team, which was kind enough to send prompt feedback and helped us fix the issue. This is another of the common adsense mistakes to avoid and its a good idea to fix it before Google comes calling…

Will Google ban your adsense account? Once the Adsense team identifies a problem in Adsense placement on your site, they usually send an email explaining the issue and give you a few days time to fix it. It is best to respond quickly and politely and fix the issue promptly. The Adsense team is very helpful, but you have to comply with their terms.

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Comments

PC | 26/08/08

What about wrapping of text beside ads? Is it allowed?
what do you think will be a best place to place ads other than them below the title of the post.
LcF | 26/08/08

thanks for the update. does adding “advertisement” solve it?
SATISH | 26/08/08

Thanks for the timely clarification. I was above to do this mistake!

Thanks a lot PC. QOT has been of great help in my blogging.
Shivaranjan | 26/08/08

@LCF
From the post it looks like by putting that it does solve the problem.

@PC
Thanks for this post.
Tawia | 27/08/08

I think this site does this mistake. Or is it that adding Advertisement below the title solve the issue?
Gopinath M | 27/08/08

whether you like it or not…you cant do anything other than listening to what google says…

Google,
You are the boss…all the bloggers are your slaves…they should listen to you or otherwise face to axe of Adsense account stripping.

Did you get any confirmation mail from Adsense team that they are happy after placing the text ADVERTISEMENT above the ads?
Chetan | 27/08/08

I use the ads just below the title but do not give maximum exposure to them as its a block of 468 x 60 ad and i did not get any mail from adsense team regarding this.

So do i consider this as safe?
Michael | 27/08/08

I love how you still have the ads below the post title on this page, it makes me laugh.
Nirmal | 27/08/08

Thanks for this info. But I can see even tops blog using this, more over its difficult to spot which title can be misleading. So I guess its better to add the “advertisement” text.
Keith Dsouza | 27/08/08

Yes I had read about this policy quite sometime back, wondering if they are selectively emailing publishers and telling them about it, would be interesting to see how many other popular publishers get such notices.
Tinh | 27/08/08

This has been clarified several weeks ago in the adsense blog and we have to follow.
Adam | 27/08/08

Google actually doesn’t really just send emails saying you’ve broken rules and you should stop or you’ll be banned. They just ban you.

I was banned without warning and they wouldn’t unban my acct once I fixed the problem. Google doesn’t care if you have $1 in your acct or $1000, so just be careful.
Shishir | 27/08/08

You do not seem to be following the guidelines even now. You still have add present right under your post title.
Do you plan to do anything about it?? You said one must comply.
QuickOnlineTips | 27/08/08

@Lcf @Gopinath - Google Adsense has confirmed that after adding Advertisements above the ads, its all clear for us. Of course you have to abide by all the other policies also.

@Tinh - The Adsense blog post is clear enough that suggestive titles directly above ads is not allowed.

@Keith - I saw that the top blog Smashing Magazine has also started using Advertisements heading in the same position.

@Adam - Google bans depend on the severity of policy violation. If someone engages in shady click fraud, I suppose they would ban without warning. But for minor ad placement issues, I am sure they would send out email to publishers.
QuickOnlineTips | 27/08/08

@Shishir, @Michael @Tawia - Now the ads are clearly labeled with an ADVERTISEMENTS text label above the ads. So now the title will not act as the label and is not misleading. The ads are now labeled as ads.

@Nirmal - it is indeed difficult to spot out of hundreds of posts, which title can be misleading. Adding Adverisements or Sponsored Links above the ads is safer for publishers.
Gopinath M | 28/08/08

Thanks for the reply. Why dont you provide subscribe to comments options? I had to come all the way to your blog to read the reply

Anyways, thank you very much for the information. Its better to add ADVERTISEMENT before Google sends a notice. They already served a notice to me an year ago
Abhishek | 28/08/08

I was not updated of this !! thanks
km | 28/08/08

How about wrapping of text beside ads? Is this allow?
QuickOnlineTips | 28/08/08

km - I guess if you wrap ads to the left, and the title is left aligned right over it, it will act like a label and that would also mislead visitors. It depends on your placement.
AboutOnlineTips | 28/08/08

But your blog still violates the TOS.
Gossip | 29/08/08

Thanks for your great reminds, suddenly realized that!
Ibrahim Rabbani | 29/08/08

So basically if i add the word ADVERTISEMENTS above my ad unit.. its fine? fair enough.. good post.. google would’ve banned me straight away :\
Tom At The Home Business Archive | 30/08/08

Thanks for the tips.Adsense rules seems to change all the time, and it is hard to keep up.Is the official Adsense blog a reliable source of information?
QuickOnlineTips | 30/08/08

Tom - Official Adsense blog is the most reliable source of information.
Simos | 1/09/08

Why Google doesn’t put on the ads 336*280 the “Google Ads” on top? With this, the problem will be solved…
imam | 2/09/08

Thank for u’r Info..
I’m Newbie ini Adsense Program
QuickOnlineTips | 2/09/08

@Simos - that will indeed solve all these problems.
concerts-philippines | 3/09/08

looks like it’s ok, just add “advertisement” on top, right?
Alex | 5/09/08

If that’s true, why is your adsense block under the title?
QuickOnlineTips | 6/09/08

@Alex - Adsense cannot be placed *directly* under post titles as they acts as labels. If you label then as Advertisements, it is then OK.
Joe | 7/09/08

How has labelling the ads advertisments affected your revenue/ctr?
Migs | 14/09/08

Thanks for the clarification. I put sponsored links in mine.

I hope Google is happy with what I did and inform me if not. This “clarification” of Google has made me go nuts!!

How did you come about to contact Google? They’re so hard to contact now. The contact page is so limited to certain issues.
John Hunt | 28/09/08

I have had my google account disabled as someone had been clicking the links , even if its not you they can do what they like as they make the rules

I had hit $100 and they kept every bit , being in the uk , this is still £50-£60 which helps to run the site for the year

There can be money to make but the rules are their to protect google and to make them rich by selling advsertising from companies through users websites for nothing

I would not recommend anyone use them ,cos if you have one issue they throw the book at you and ban you for life and after your first failed review of your case , a email explaining you have done nothing wrong , they ignore you and never get back

Google will also remove pages from indexed searched putting them down so users do not hear the bad things google do
pinoytube | 10/10/08

your post is good i already change my setting.
earn money | 5/11/08

thanks for giving us this positive information.
harmedia | 9/11/08

Great post. Very helpful as I am dealing with the same thing now.

My question is..

How did you contact the Google enforcement team once you’d fixed the problem at your site?

What is the URL please?

Gary
varbak | 12/12/08

I love how you still have the ads below the post title on this page, it makes me laugh.
QuickOnlineTips | 12/12/08

@varbak - you missed the large advertisements text above the ads.
Tian Chad | 24/12/08

Hi there,

Im not IT literated
So mind if teach me how to put the Google adsense between post title and post body?
And with ADVERTISEMENT above the google adsense?

Thanks in advance~
Looking for for online tips ^@^
Jauhari | 28/12/08

Thanks for this informations