Google: Blend Ads, But not too Well!
Google has what seems like reasonable tips for using AdSense on Forums, but that had one strange piece of advice:
Be sure to blend the ads nicely, so they don’t appear overly intrusive – but don’t blend them so well they mislead your users!
I’m really not quite sure what that is supposed to mean. I guess that there are some questionable techniques like using images next to ads, but I don’t think those would really work with a audience of repeat visitors to a forum.
Ralph Kern Said,
October 9, 2005 @ 9:13 am
I think it’s quite obvious, what they mean. They propose to put ads above or below the first (and the last) topic of any topic page in your forum.
One way to implement it in your forum software is to use the same template as a posting for the ads. But that leads to a possible misconception of your forum visitors, that they might believe the google ad’s to be real postings.
So the issue is not to “blend too well” for the ads to be recognisable as ads, not postings.