Adsense blending - Look at this!

Take a look at adsense borders! How did they do it? some CSS or what? I haven't yet took a deeper look into the source code, but I never seen anything like that before:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Popup-Ad-Spyware-Blockers/MSN-Advert-Removal.shtml

Google code seems to remain unchanged.

 

looks normal to me

 

Normal?

They have xp-style borders. Also they have changed the default fonts and colors(border text) for google ads!

Did you saw any site with something like this?

 

What they have done is very normal. I am however curious whether they get any clicks on those links or not - the page is loaded with so many other links.

 

very nice, I don;t think their normal ads, as they links changes when you hover over it

 

Its definitely not normal (right hand side skyscrappers), but those could be adsense premium publisher ads.

 

It may appear normal at first, but you can notice first how there is no solid background between 'the page' and where it says 'Ads by Google.' You can see the gradient image behind the text! But what's more, as timothy104 pointed out they have changed the style rules for the links to change their color when you hover over them.

One thing comes to mind... back in spring season I read a post on here about a site using some weird techniques to request the ads and display them on the page itself using javascript maybe. I had almost forgotten about that, and I wonder if anyone else remembers?

I recall someone saying in that old thread that you were only allowed to do that if you were a premium publisher.

 

Of course they are a premium publisher. Softpedia has an Alexa Rank of 637 and gets millions of hits every day. Thats why you see all these custom adsense ads.

 

I have looked trough their code and I've seen this in their css:

.google_vertical_text {	font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;	font-size: 12px; color: #677695;}
.google_vertical_link a { font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #21427D; font-weight: bold;}
.google_vertical_url a { font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9px; color: #21427D; text-decoration:none}
.google_vertical_ads a { font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; color: #21427D;}

Code (markup):

I have seen before people changing font of a website to the one that is the same as google ads uses, but never seen changing the fonts of an google ad to the ones that would suit original page.

I never heard about google premium publishers, so I just wondered if it does comply with Google's TOS.

Now, it makes me wonder. if I play with CSS style to achieve this effect would it work for me and would it be ok?

 

If you look at the code for that page, the banner ad at the top and the link unit further down the page are using regular adsense code, but the skyscraper ads on the right are actually google syndication links with the text and url coded into the html, so it never changes unless they change it. It's not actually adsense ads.

 

They are from romania, as i am, and i know from their romanian forum that they are premium publishers + they display ads in different stiles depending on the visitors location + clickrate is verry low, but at their traffic level (about 12 milion uniques per month - 40-50 milions pageviews) they shure get enough money to make it worth it.

 

They also have background image under the ads.

What is most annoying in being standard publishers is that you practically cannot make adsense look well if you have a backround image on the page. But if they allowed that, there would be too much abusing, I guess.

So, premium publishers can change background and frame and fonts styles entirely.

 

Yeah if anyone of us would do that we'll get kicked big time.
They are lucky they bring in enough $$$ for google so google closes an eye

Didier

 

Definitely a premium publisher, they can fully customize their ads with CSS.

It would be against the TOS.

 

It wouldn't be, since TOS forbids only modifying adsense code, not your CSS files. But it wouldn't work I guess. If you haven't noticed regular publishers ads are in their own frames (at least ads for content).

Now if you look at those Softpedia's Google ads I mentioned, there aren't in a separete frame.

 

Yeah I dont think regular Adsense publishers can customise up to that level. There's no way you can customise the background like what Softpedia did.

- MENJ