More on Google Custom Search Engines and Non-profits/Charities
Last week I gave an example of how charities and non-profits can use Google Custom Search Engines as fundraising tools. I had one small concern with what I wrote, though, and that was whether or not it was OK for employees of the organization to click the ads on a CSE (custom search engine). As you know, AdSense publishers may not click ads on their own sites, and a strong interpretation of this rule would put an organization's AdSense account at risk if its own employees were clicking ads. Although I had a solution in mind for this scenario — just create two identical CSEs, one with ads and one without, and make sure the internal folks use the latter — I thought it best to get the scoop right from the horse's mouth. This is what I asked the AdSense team:
Say the American Cancer Society creates a CSE that emphasizes results
from authoritative cancer sites and maybe even excludes some
objectionable sites. It then monetizes the CSE with AdSense.
Say further that the society encourages its employees and its supporters
to use the CSE for their day-to-day searching.
In this scenario, is it OK for society employees to click ads as part of
their normal searching, just as they would on the main Google result
pages?
The answer I got back from Google was:
Yes, in your
example it is fine for the society employees to click the ads as part of
their normal searching as long as they don't have the intention to click
only to monetize the society's AdSense account.
Straight from the horse's mouth. Of course, you can't go around telling people to click the ads. In fact, you probably don't want to mention the ads at all — just publicize the CSE and explain why how the CSE benefits the organization's supporters. You might even want to make the CSE available without ads at first (only non-profits and charities can get away with this, actually) and then introduce the ads once the CSE has established itself.
Again, if anyone tries this out, I'd love to hear how it works out for your group. Or if you need some help getting it set up, just drop me a note.
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Eric Giguere is the contextual advertising expert who wrote Make Easy Money with Google and Uncommon AdSense. If you like this posting, why not link to his blog or bookmark it as one of your favorites?
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