Guidelines in Displaying Google ads with Third-party Ads

This post was most recently updated on July 6th, 2022

Last quarter was a successful year for AdSense after blacklisting around 200,000 publishers’ pages for various policy violations including content violations and accidental clicks.

This means that Google is becoming more aggressive in battling bad ads and bad content. On the other hand, this means lots of money lost for publishers, which is the exact thing that you don’t want to happen to you this year and in the future.

Related Read: Top Adsense Ad Violations

Publishers also get flagged for content violations due to the display of third-party (non-Google ads) that are not family-safe. Remember that ads are considered part of the site’s content.

Google’s ad placement policies also apply to third-party ads. If you want to make sure you adhere to the right way of displaying third-party ads alongside Google ads, check out the 3 main rules we have listed down:

Rule # 1: When creating content for your site, it should be two things – family safe and legal

Family safe means all content and links are appropriate for all audiences. This does not only mean the obvious nude images or bold text fonts but also those obscure text and topics which are suggestive in nature.

Legal means that your activities are not against any law and does not intend to harm any other publishers or user.
Some content guidelines:

• Your site cannot display ads on the content you don’t own
• Don’t frame content from another site and place ads around it, called framing
• You can’t place ads on sites that point or link to a pirated content

Related Read: Keep It Clean: Avoid Adult Content on Sites With Google Ads

Rule # 2: Make sure visitors are not misled resulting in accidental clicks or encouraging clicks

There is nothing wrong with blending your ads to your site but you have to be careful to avoid appearing as if you’re inviting accidental clicks. To do so, put yourself in your user’s shoes and ask yourself if you can distinguish between your ads and your content. If not, then you will want to revisit your color and design preferences.

Here are other things you must avoid in terms of displaying third-party ads:

• You may not format ads to look like as content such as the same format as the navigational menu of the website.
• Placing ads on top of a video player content so that the ad is clicked first to play the video.
• Altering the ad unit beyond the approved size options or manipulate ad targeting using hidden keywords.
• Ads pre-rolling to games are not allowed unless you sign for AdSense for Games (AFG) if you want this to be implemented.

Rule # 3: Check and review your third-party ads on a regular basis to stay Google-compliant

It’s always better safe than sorry. It’s always ideal to check the ads showing on your site. Remember that one of the surest ways to increase your visitors and eventually your revenues is by staying compliant with AdSense policies because the same rules apply even to third-party ads.

To make sure your site is Google Adsense or Ad Exchange-compliant, contact MonetizeMore for a FREE website consultation. You may also sign-up for free to Google Ad Exchange here.

Related Reads:

• Top Adsense Ad Violations
• Keep It Clean: Avoid Adult Content on Sites With Google Ads
• Google Content Policy Violations and How Your Website Can Avoid Them
• A Publisher’s Guide to an AdSense Rejection
• How to Filter Adult Search Results in Google Custom Search Engine

Kean Graham

Kean Graham is the CEO and founder of MonetizeMore & a pioneer in the Adtech Industry. He is the resident expert in Ad Optimization, covering areas like Adsense Optimization,GAM Management, and third-party ad network partnerships. Kean believes in the supremacy of direct publisher deals and holistic optimization as keys to effective and consistent ad revenue increases.