Comments on: Amazon UK Test ‘Self-Optimising Links’ – Beware AdSense publishers

By: Taj Singh

Taj Singh — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 00:13:13 +0000

I sent an email to the Adsense team and asked if using the Amazon self-optimising links and adsense on the same page is against adsense TOS.

Heres the response:

Thanks for your email.

According to our program policies, Amazon Self-Optimizing Links may be
displayed on the same page as Google ads on your site.

In general, AdSense program policy does not permit Google ads to be
published on the same page as other contextually-targeted ads. You can
review this, and all Google AdSense program policies, at
https://www.google.com/adsense/policies .

For additional questions, I’d encourage you to visit the AdSense Help
Center (http://www.google.com/adsense_help), our complete resource center
for all AdSense topics. Alternatively, feel free to post your question on
the forum just for AdSense publishers: the AdSense Help Group
(http://groups.google.com/group/adsense-help).

Sincerely,

*******
The Google AdSense Team

By: Darren Rowse

Darren Rowse — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 06:01:41 +0000

Humanaught – you’re right – but it won’t change until something else is offered to publishers that makes them swap and until that happens they’ll continue to be exclusive I guess :-)

By: The Humanaught

The Humanaught — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 05:50:39 +0000

Here’s something that maybe I’m a bit naive about… how can Google make such a blanket statement as saying “you can’t have any other contextual-based advertising on your site.” Does anyone not see this as a monopolistic play and not allowing for market competition?

I use Adsense, but they’re quickly becoming a bit of a dictatorship on page content.

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By: Alex Choo

Alex Choo — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 14:40:42 +0000

Hi everyone.

TicTap Contextual Ads is highly configurable. It uses 3 ways to determine what products to show. It uses meta keywords and descriptions, and user-defined keywords.

If you enable the meta keywords and descriptions features, then TCA would violate Adsense’s TOS. But you can turn them off, so that TCA can coexist with Adsense.

Most people just use keywords to show relevant Amazon products, and this does not violate Adsense’s TOS.

By contextual, Google means an algorithm that ‘magically determines’ the context of an entire page. TicTap is a 2 guy show, and we certainly do not have the resources for that. As long as you stick to using keywords, then TCA cannot magically figure out what your page is about, and no one has to give up Adsense.

We also wrote about Amazon’s Self-Optimising Links and how it violates Adsense’s TOS.

http://blog.tictap.com/index.php/2006/06/27/amazons-self-optimising-links-violates-adsense-tos

I hope this explanation helps.

By: John Hood

John Hood — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 09:41:31 +0000

Darren,

I sent you an e-mail regarding Amazon UK’s SOL a fortnight ago! Perhaps your spam filter was being overzealous! ;-)

John

By: Andy Merrett

Andy Merrett — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 07:02:01 +0000

I guess it comes down to checking with AdSense, because for me “contextual” is a very broad term.

Suppose I use my own code to scan for keywords in each article I write, selecting my own text links/ads based on this. Effectively, this is contextual, because I’m choosing what to display based on the context.

Suppose I write my own code to do this for an affiliate program. Technically this is different from the affiliate program itself selecting ads contextually, but the end result is similar.

By: David Krug

David Krug — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 01:36:31 +0000

You definetly don’t have to give up your Google. There is non contextual features available.

By: Brad

Brad — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 00:43:06 +0000

Just from the few things I’ve read about it, I’m in no hurry to give up my adsense ads! As of now, google is my bread and butter! I only get a few hits a week on my Amazon ads, and frankly, don’t make a cent.

Maybe if Amazon would have come up with this idea a few years ago I might have been interested. But as of now, no thanks!

Brad

By: David Krug

David Krug — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 00:00:28 +0000

It’s actually doesn’t scan your content you have to enter the keywords in either a default set for your blog, or you can optimize per post.

Just a quick fyi.

By: Thilak

Thilak — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 23:57:42 +0000

Nope, I won’t sacrifice AdSense for Amazon