What is an AdSense "content page"?
Every once in a while in one of the main AdSense forums a debate rages over the existence of “made for AdSense” sites. These are sites that typically have little content or else that scrape their content from other sites. (See my related post about information repeaters.) They then surround the content with AdSense ad and/or link units and use aggressive search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to get the pages to rank highly in the search engines for specific keyword combinations. Some of these sites even buy AdWords ads to direct traffic to their sites by bidding low on keywords in the hopes of redirecting the traffic to the higher-paying links on their own sites.
Content producers wonder why Google doesn't shut these sites down. So that made me think about the terms and conditions of the AdSense program. They change from time to time, so you have to refer to them occasionally for the “official word” on what's OK and what's not. If you scour the current Terms and Conditions you'll see that they don't actually say much about the content of the site:
- Each Web page(s) that contains a Search Box must also contain other content related to Your Site.
- If You have elected to receive content or Site-based Ads, You further agree not to display on any Serviced Page any non-Google content-targeted advertisement(s).
- You are solely responsible for the Site(s), including all content and materials, maintenance and operation thereof, the proper implementation of Google's specifications, and adherence to the terms of this Agreement, including compliance with the Program Policies.
There are a few other content-related provisions, but mostly they have to do with you not interfering with the display of ads or putting ads on error pages or pages with prohibited content, such as this one:
- You shall not … display any Ad(s) or Link(s) on any error page, on any registration or “thank you” page (e.g., a page that thanks a user after he/she has registered with the applicable Web site), on any chat page, in any email, or on any Web page or any Web site that contains any pornographic, hate-related, violent, or illegal content
That seems to be the closest definition of a “non-content” page in the Terms and Conditions. Now let's look at the AdSense Program Policies, which are incorporated by reference into the Terms and Conditions:
- No Google ad may be placed on any non-content-based pages.
- No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant.
- Site may not include … excessive, repetitive, or irrelevant keywords in the content or code of web pages.
- Site may not include … deceptive or manipulative content or construction to improve your site's search engine ranking, e.g., your site's PageRank.
Again, there's no clear definition of what constitutes a “content page” within the Program Policies, though there are clear rules as to what kind of pages that do not qualify for AdSense, and that's where most of these “scraper” sites fall down. The last three conditions above — no sites created specifically for AdSense, no keyword stuffing, no blackhat SEO tricks — are the conditions that are most often violated. I'll have more to say about this tomorrow.
Eric Giguere is the author of Make Easy Money with Google, a real introductory AdSense book for non-technical people. Be sure to download the free sample chapter.
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3 Responses to “What is an AdSense "content page"?”
[...] What is an AdSense content page? [...]
I know what you mean, recently lost adsense ads on my site.
But there are alternatives to Adsense.
Absolutely. I don’t think webmasters should blind themselves and think that AdSense is the ONLY ad program out there. AdSense is easy to use and there’s ad inventory for almost anything. But if you do some work and you’re in the right niche you can almost always find alternative ad programs to use and some of them may perform better for you.