For quite a while now, we see google adsense blocks with images placed aside. Often these images are seperated by a straight line (dotted in most cases). This is especially common in blogs. Yup, they are done with the help of plugins like Adsense Beutifier. The purpose was to attract the visitors towards the adsense links and make them click the links, thereby increasing the chances of generating more revenue.
But yesterday Google made a clarification in this regard at an official blog post ..
We ask that publishers not line up images and ads in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads. If your visitors believe that the images and the ads are directly associated, or that the advertiser is offering the exact item found in the neighboring image, they may click the ad expecting to find something that isn’t actually being offered. That’s not a good experience for users or advertisers.
Very true, isn’t it? Google also used two excellent examples to clear the confusion. In the first pic we can clearly see a picture of banana adjacent to a link that says Order Grapefruit. Now most visitors will tend to click on that link and expect to get a webpage related to banana rather than Grapefruits. So what you are actually doing here is fooling your visitors, the advertisers, Google and earn bucks. Google objects to this trick and suggests not to use it any further.
I think it’s fair enough both for publisher and advertiser.