Is that a big no-no in Google and Yahoo! or am I just wrong?

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=17104

Read all the great goodness in that thread

Images near my ads improved my CTR by an insane amount. Just put a border between the images and your ads

I'm going to give it a try

Is this some kind of script or do you manually add the images yourself?

Just curious.

Personally I use a little PHP image rotation script that I made with a tutorial on SitePoint (I forget the page, but I'll post it if I find it). It's not the greatest script really though hehe, I'm on the lookout for something better - ideally something that grabs images from a directory and uses them, instead of needing to be specified in the script.

For the images, I found a good supply of generic cool-looking images on www.sxc.hu (I only chose images with a no-restriction license). For me I went with more abstract type images, though some people choose things like nature or architechture, or something tied to their niche (though not product images, arrows, etc). I then made an image file in Photoshop the size I wanted (i.e. 45x45px), and dragged the images in as layers, resizing and moving them to a spot in the image I liked best. I then saved them each by toggling the layers off in order.

There's a plugin for WordPress called AdSense Beautifier you can use if you like. It's kinda cool, it uses the images I selected and prepared for my own AdSense (the creator of the plugin and I were talking on SitePoint) - so now I keep seeing the images all over the place since the plugin seems to have become pretty popular. Heh I'm glad I used only non-restricted images

Plugin looks great, dude, I will surely use it.

Just a question, though, does it support anything else than leatherboard and large rectangle?

thanks for the info keyz

No problem

The plugin creator has mentioned he intends to make it work with other ad sizes, but I don't know when. I'm planning to tinker around with WordPress for the first time this week and while doing so I'll have a look at this plugin's code myself.... if I can, I'll add support for the other sizes myself and share it here and with the creator.

Thanks, Keyz, keep us posted

Originally Posted by Keyz

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=17104

Read all the great goodness in that thread

I noticed that the Draw a Pig site is no longer doing the images above Adsense in the same way.

http://drawapig.desktopcreatures.com/

It makes me wonder if either it's not working anymore or if Google told them to stop doing it.

I also noticed that a few sites that use to have images next to ads had stopped doing that.

On the other hand so sites had reported that Google told them their usage is ok.

Perhaps it is on a case by case basis.

It could be because the pigs are not related to "personality tests". I think they'll draw the line somewhere, or people will just be putting hot women thumbnails next to car insurance ads.

Google told me to take it down, but now google sometimes puts random images next to it :S

Ouch.. I have images next to my ads. I have to work on having a border between the ads... Ahehehe...

Originally Posted by Sygon

Google told me to take it down, but now google sometimes puts random images next to it :S

Did they give a reason and were your thumbnails related? I asked them about my site a couple of months ago, which has thumbnails with a border seperating them from the ads. They said it was fine back then.

I've been meaning to do this for ages, am testing it out now on my individual post pages on an area that's typically not performed well. I decided to use simple little illustrations of lingerie instead of images, as i think readers are probably image-blind and it just looks nicer. I'll let you know if my CTR increases!

I emailed both google and Ypn on this question. They both stated there had to be some separation. ie borders, lines, etc. The both approved the way I had done them.

Is there any script or program out there that can do the borders and images for you? That would be great

ShoeMoney has a script that can find related images on the web and scale them, etc and put them next to your ads.... however this isn't adviseable in my opinion, since there's always the chance that you use the wrong image and offend someone or get in trouble for copyright infringement. I prefer to only use images with a clearly defined usage license (i.e. check the individual image license as you browse through www.sxc.hu).

In regard to why drawapig does not have their images in the same way as they are shown on the first example in the thread, it's because they did indeed have updated requirements from Google, and also they were seeking a way of using the images without having a certain number of images positioned above the ads, since often Google now puts only 1-3 ads instead of all 4 (which looks odd next to 4 images). I don't remember which page of the thread, but Critters discusses the changes. As of the last time I looked a day or so ago, Critters still supports the technique and still has Google's blessing. It's a loooooong thread, but it's worth reading - it's chock full of ideas.