Site and ad behavior

Need a few more guidelines for how your site should be designed? Not necessarily?
Well, tough because Google’s giving a few more anyway. In this section
of the program policies, Google outlines yet more no-nos. You can’t use
pop-ups or pop-unders in your site design. (Pop-ups are those annoying little
windows that pop up out of nowhere when you click a link leading to a Web
site or when you click away from the site. Pop-unders are the same except the
window appears under your Web browser so you don’t see them until you
close the browser window.)
You also can’t try to deceive your visitors into clicking through ads by disguising
the ads or hiding them within text, behind graphics, or in the background
of the Web page. The ads must appear as ads and not as sponsored
links of any kind.
And to take it all one step further, Google also has Landing Page Quality
Guidelines to help ensure that your landing page — the first page that site
visitors land on when they click into your Web site — is designed well and
adheres to the AdSense Program Policy requirements. These guidelines ask
the following of you and your site:
That you have relevant and original content on your site
That your site is clear in your intent and the nature of your business (if
that’s relevant)
That it’s clear how your visitors’ information will be used
That users can find their way around your site, or navigate the site,
easily
I recommend checking out the full set of Landing Page Quality Guidelines at
https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=
46675&hl=en.
The real key to staying in Google’s good graces (for both search engine ranking
and the AdSense program) is to design your Web site with the end user
in mind. If you’re designing a site strictly to collect ad clicks, you might get
a high number of visitors for a short time, but that number will fall like a
penny dropped from the Empire State building as soon as users figure out
what you’re up to. Or worse, Google will figure it out first and ban you from
AdSense and probably from search engine rankings, too.
A much better idea is to design your site for site visitors. Provide the information
that visitors are looking for. They’ll spend more time on your site,
which means more exposure to AdSense ads, which means ultimately more
clicks. And Google will leave you alone to make your money. Not a bad trade
for doing things the right way instead of trying to deceive site visitors.