AdSense and Adult Content

The controversial subject of AdSense and 'adult content' often rears its ugly head in the AdSense Help Group. It's well known by most AdSense publishers that adult content is forbidden under the terms and conditions. In this post I am specifically referring to pictures that have a sexual connotation - however remote that connotation might actually be.

If I had a dollar for every time someone complained on there that they had been banned for pictures of ladies in swimsuits, I'd be pretty well off by now. Every publisher should be aware of the conflict between what Google classes as adult content and what the normal population would consider to be adult in nature. Google utilise their world famous 'Grandma algorithm' to determining which content is adult in nature. It's similar to the PageRank algorithm, but slightly less well known and more open to dodgy interpretation.

The way it works is as follows: If your Grandma is likely to disagree with your content then that's a good indication Google will too. Google tends to be slightly prudish when it comes to bare flesh of any sort - if you display a picture of an underwear model, even when their modesty is covered, you run the likelihood of Google considering it adult content. If they consider it adult in nature, they might also consider it damaging to their whiter than white (yeah, right) reputation. If this is the case they'll ban the publisher concerned, and that's a road you don't want to go down. As I've mentioned before, once banned it is very difficult to get reinstated.

You might think this is slightly hypocritical - after all, Google will accept all sorts of unscrupulous AdWords advertisers selling knock-off goods, dodgy timeshares and kinky sex aids. You'd be absolutely right - hypocritical is a word that describes Google perfectly in this sense - however, AdSense is their trainset and to play with it and reap the rewards you need to stick to their rules.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is don't put anything remotely risque on your AdSense bearing pages. If you have any doubt you should consult AdSense Support BEFORE placing your content on a page with AdSense.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's ok that Google bans adult content sites because Adult sites make tons of money from other advertisers anyways...