Google Does Not Like Images Near AdSense Anymore

A commentator “Salman” brought this to my notice through a comment on my last post. Thanks Salman.

You must have seen the nice images near the Google AdSense ads in my right sidebar. Well, on the 18th of this month, Google made it clear that such images are not acceptable. The details are described under the blog post titled “Ad and image placement: a policy clarification“. Let me quote a few lines from the post which would make this very clear :):

What if I place a space or a line between my images and my ads? Would that work?

No. If the ads and the images appear to be associated, inserting a small space or a line between the images and ads will not make the implementation compliant.

Here is an example of an “unacceptable” ad displayed on the post:

Apparently, the images are not really related except the “fruit” part. There is an image of a banana near the ad “Order Grapefruit”.

That’s bad news for people who are using Wordpress plugins like “AdSense Beautifier”.

That also means that the images on the AdSense widget on my right side bar will go away. In fact I think it’s a good excuse for me to get rid of AdSense totally for some time and see how it goes :).