Clarification about Google AdSense TOS needed

[weblaunch]

Hello,

I'm a little confused on what constitutes an AdSense "ad unit". From my understanding of TOS, an "ad unit" refers to a contextual ad whereas search boxes belong to a different cateogory of ads altogether. Am I correct to assume that you can have up to three contextual ads AND two search boxes (five Google ads total) on page? However, if a search box is also considered an "ad unit" (after all, it is a form of advertisement for Google), this would be a violation of Google TOS. I have some pages that display two ads and two search boxes, so I am concerned that I may be violating the TOS.

I think the wording of Google's TOS is open to a lot of misinterpretation. One guy threatened to report me for displaying one Google ad on top of another of the same size, claiming that I violated the TOS stipulating that no page can contain two identical (one large rectangle over another). Of course, the TOS does not state that you can't have two or more ads of the same format on a page. Even though the two ads have the same format, they display totally different contents. In fact, showing multiple ads in different formats is more likely to produce double-serving of ad contents.

Please clarify. Thanks in advance!

 

[hotrod12]

I am little confused about it too and I am not sure if I still want to go with them but could somebody who uses them please tell me how many clicks per day average straight (no incentives)

 

[IAmAllanShore]

Against TOS to reveal click # or any other such stats.
As far as I know, it is 3 ad units including search boxes, but the way to settle the discussion for sure would be to e-mail adsense and ask
-Allan

 

[hotrod12]

Oh sorry about that I saw some places that people had said this but I guess its not allowed.

 

[IAmAllanShore]

And you shouldn't have to include "no incentives" as having incentives is against TOS also. Anybody looking to start in Adsense, your first step should be to print out the Adsense TOS and sit down and read them so you know what you're getting in to.
-Allan

 

[hotrod12]

Yeah I am thinking about wheather to use them or not but probably tommorow when I made up my mind I am going to spend a couple of hours and read every single page about their program rules and such and plus I said that because some people do that I have seen it and I wanted to know without incentive but like you informed in the other post it is against their rules to reveal your clicks.

 

[FusionX]

An ad unit is different than a search box, so you can have upto 3 ad units PLUS 2 search boxes. Moreover, there is no problem with displaying ad units of the same size on a single page.

Google has a problem when different ad units on a page are showing similar ads. The best way to work around that is to have enough content on the page so that Google can display different ads. For a page with decent sized content, Google always comes up with enough ad inventory related to the content to fill up upto 3 ad units. But things start getting somewhat muddy when you are using frames on a single page and every ad unit is displayed on a different frame. This is just because, Google has no way of knowing what ads are displayed on another frame. In that case, two frames MAY show similar ads and that is against Google TOS.
In short avoid frames ... or put somewhat different content in each of them.

Hope this helps.