Beware Of Using Google Adsense With Any Other Link Exchange Program

I recently ran across a post in the LinkReferral Program I currently use. Apparently Google does not allow you to place any type advertisement banners or links from any link exchange programs on your site while displaying any of the Google Ad-sense banners and links on your blog or website. This member’s blog was removed for violating Google’s “Terms of Service Agreement”. Seeing as you need to be a member to view the forum posts in the LinkReferral Program, I’ve included the forum post and the letter received by this user. Forum post: “I received the following email from google today and will be removing the ads from my site. I’m sure adsense can be successful but it’s really not necessary for this site and definitely not worth a few pennies a day.” If you happen to be a LinkReferral member, the direct link to this post is HERE. Email that was received by this member from Google: "It has come to our attention that invalid clicks or impressions have been generated on your Google ads, posing a financial risk to our AdWords advertisers. We’ve found that users of third-party programs have been paid or provided with other incentives to visit your site. Such programs include, but are not limited to, auto-surf, pay-to-surf,pay-to-read, or pay-to-click sites. Please note that any method that artificially generates click or impressions on Google ads is strictly prohibited by our program policies, as such activity may artificially inflate an advertiser’s costs or a publisher’s earnings. We understand that you may want more information about the activity we detected. However, because we have a need to protect our proprietary detection systems, we’re unable to provide our publishers with any details about their account activity, including any web pages, users,or third-party services that may have been involved. Thank you for your understanding.We recommend reviewing these references to learn more about invalid click activity and other activities that could endanger your account standing: https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_US http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=8426&hl=en_US If you need help logging the traffic on your site to determine the source of your visitors, we recommend trying these Google search terms: Webmaster resources Website tracking and logging Site traffic analysis In addition, because we credit advertisers for any invalid activity we detect, we may adjust your account earnings for any days during which such activity occurred. Lastly, please note that if we continue to detect invalid activity from these services on your Google ads, we may take further action on your account in order to protect our advertisers’ interests, and payment may be withheld. Thank you for your understanding. Sincerely, The Google AdSense Team" New UPDATE: I recieved this email from the Google Team this morning: 07/27/2009 Hi, We're writing to let you know about an upcoming update in your AdSense account designed to help you generate the maximum revenue from your ad units. You'll soon be able to allow multiple ad networks to show on your pages, which means that advertisers from external Google-certified networks will be able to compete with AdWords advertisers for your ad space. If you're unfamiliar with what ad networks are, they're companies that partner with advertisers and publishers to buy and sell ads on sites they don't own themselves, similar to AdSense. Ads from these networks will compete with Google ads to show on publisher sites, and the ad generating the highest revenue for publishers will be displayed. To ensure the quality of the ads appearing on your sites, we're certifying all participating ad networks for adherence to our standards for user privacy, ad quality, and speed. You'll also have control over which networks can show ads on your pages -- you can choose to opt out of receiving ads from specific networks, or all networks completely. This means you can continue to show ads from only AdWords advertisers if you'd like. Finally, some ad networks use tools similar to Google's interest-based advertising to show more relevant ads to users on the sites they visit. These ad networks won't be permitted to collect data from your site for the purpose of subsequent interest-based advertising, but we'll allow those who comply with user privacy guidelines to show ads using these tools. You'll have the ability to opt out of showing ads based on user interests from these ad networks, and we've changed our requirements for third-party ad serving to reflect this. More information is available at http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=94230 . These new capabilities will automatically be enabled for your account, and you'll see a new section in your Ad Review Center where you can allow or block specific ad networks. Please note that we'll gradually be adding new ad networks to AdSense accounts over the next few months, so you won't see any immediate impact on your ads or your earnings. To learn more about this launch and managing the ad networks appearing on your pages, visit the AdSense Help Center at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=13522 and watch our video demo at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HyJPOVLd3I . Sincerely, The Google AdSense Team