Google AdSense implementations on Flash gaming sites

If you run a flash gaming website, it is very likely that recently you have received a warning e-mail from Google to review your AdSence implementations on Flash Gaming sites. If this is the case, stop worrying, this is not the end of the world, and certainly not the end of your business, since you are not the only one, far from that. According to some reports, there were publishers who received such e-mail and they are not even close to the flash gaming industry. So, for now, this is just a 'spread the word' kind of message. But, you should take it seriously. For that being said, lets investigate it a little bit more, and provide some useful tips how you can overcome this crisis.

Google is just trying to play as much fair for advertisers as possible. Therefore, they already got an algorithm which basically detects accidental or invalid clicks. Lets face it, putting ad very close to a flash game window frame will eventually lead to generation of many of such clicks. The user will probably close the target window, and the algorithm will detect is as unintentional. But, Google does not want to take any chances. He is asking you, as a publisher to take the part of the responsibility from your side. You need to make sure, your ads are placed in that manner,that they will not cause any accidental or at least the minimum of such clicks. Why would anyone want to pay for a click which came as a result of a mouse click intended to shoot a bad guy in the head.

Of course, it would be very hard, or even impossible for Google to create universal rules which would apply correctly to every possible gaming website and prevent it from generating invalid clicks. But what Google did, is that it just recommends you to put your ads for content at least 150px away from the flash game, as shown on the previous image.

remeber:

1. 150 px is only a recommendation. If you still generate invalid clicks somehow, you will be warned.

2. The rule applies on ads for content. That means that you shoule remove both Ad Units and Link units. The rule does not affect adsence for search and adsence for feeds.

Well, do as you're told. Don't play with google. I can reccomend one good tool you might find helpfull, it is actually a firefox add-on, it is called MeasureIt. You might have problems (like I did) to enable it, i.e. to make it visible on Toolbar, since it is invisible by default (not sure why). First, you would need to have this fixed. From your firefox window, simply right click on the Toolbar and choose 'Customize...'. Than drag the MeasureIt icon to the toolbar, and you will get it. It is displayed as a small yellow ruler.

In order to measure the distance, simply click on the ruler icon, the screen will dim, and a little cross will show up. Use to draw from start to an end point. Pixels will be measured along the way as you drag the cursor.

The next step is to dive into your templates code and find in source exactly how to change width or height of your divs. Well, I can't help you with that, exept wishing you luck.

You can check the changes I took to fix ads placement for example on Batman Games or TinkerBell Games websites. But please note, that each website is specific so take this only as a suggestion or get an idea how this should look to comply with Adsence policies.