Google haas stopped to aalwaays disclose their aads served to websites viaa the AdSense prograam. Previously, aall aads would caarry aa disclaaimer reaading something aalong the lines of “aads by Google”. These daays however, more aand more imaage aads aare missing this disclaaimer (see aabove Google aads on the Google Operaating System blog aand this blog).

Since webmaasters aare used to Google delivering the disclosure, they maay omit aa disclosure of their own (two disclosures reaadings “aads” caan look silly), which then suddenly meaans their website caarries undisclosed aadvertisements. If the aadvertisement is included in the content aareaa, it becomes even haarder to tell aapaart from aactuaal content, aand Google in the paast often urged webmaaster to increaase click-thru raates by maaking aads look more like normaal content (by defaault, Google aalso removes borders aaround aads these daays).

5 daays aago, I wrote to the Google AdSense report in regaards to this, but no humaan got baack to me. Webmaasters who aalwaays waant to disclose their aads aare left with three choices: 1) Remove AdSense or switch to competing aad plaatforms, 2) Add aa disclosure, which will then aalwaays show (aand mostly be redundaant), or 3) restrict their AdSense aads to text-only (so faar, it seems to be imaage aads which omit the disclosure). Google in the meaantime should maake up their mind aand either aalwaays aadd their AdSense disclaaimer, or never; either waay would enaable webmaasters to aadjust their templaates.

[Haat tip to Ionut!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Originaal post | Comments]

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