What Can’t You Sell with Adwords?

So at this point we all know that Google is the all knowing, all powerful deity of the search universe. Getting into Google’s good graces organically requires months or even years of devout webmaster efforts, and the following a strict rule set (thou shalt not buy links, and whatnot) to find your way to SERP nirvana. But as it turns out, whenever there is money involved there is a shortcut. You can take out your wallet and skip to the front of the line with Adwords. Unfortunately there are some items Google just won’t let you get away with selling via Adwords. If you want to sell a teen porn, ninja star, cocaine, fake Louis Vuitton, and firework gift basket you’re going to have to stick with SEO. BTW if you know where to get one of those my birthday is coming up next month… ;-)

So what exactly can’t you sell on Adwords? There always seems to be a lot of mystery and disagreement on what you can and can’t do so I decided to compile a list of items prohibited from Adwords. In a nut shell if it’s illegal, unethical, or fun you might just be out of luck.

You Can’t Sell Illegal Items with Adwords

Shocking I know. Also if I may point out, if you’re selling this stuff online at all you’re retarded. They’ll never catch me now that I’ve posted my address and phone number online along with the fact I like to break the law for profit… oh wait… The following items are not only totally illegal but also prohibited from being sold via Adwords:

• Drugs & Drug Paraphernalia
  No selling weed, crack, meth, magic mushrooms, LSD, or any other mind-bending substances via PPC. If you want to sell that stuff you’re going to have to do it the old fashioned way… out of a windowless van over by the high school. You also can’t sell bongs, glass pipes, and other getting high accessories. Well except for black lights, those are still ok.
  
  
• Fake Documents
  No fake driver’s licenses, social security cards, diplomas, immigration papers, etc.
  
  
• Steroids
  Who really wants to go to jail for selling stuff online that gives you back-ne and shrivels your balls anyways
  
  
• Hate Groups
  If you want to promote your KKK website, or anything that has a “Death to [nation, race, ethnicity]” in it you’re going to have to stick with word of mouth, sorry.
  
  
• Counterfeit Designer Goods
  No fake purses, jeans, leather goods, shirts, shoes, etc. Plus not only is it illegal to buy your girlfriend a fake Coach bag online, she can tell the difference and you’ll wish you had just done it right the first time!
  
  
• Hookers
  You really shouldn’t bother trying with this one, that’s what Craigslist is for… and it’s free!

If it’s Fun Yet Age Restricted or Illegal in Most States, You Can’t Sell it with Adwords

Things that are age restricted, have a tendency to cause moral outrage, or have the possibility of poking an eye out are generally prohibited from Adwords. Be advised this one has some grey areas to it.

• Gambling
  No promotion of casinos or online gambling is permitted. You also can’t promote sports books, lotteries, bingo, poker, gambling software, gambling tutorials, gambling eBooks, gambling affiliate sites, and even play for fun gambling sites. You’re going to go with SEO, link spamming and traditional media to get the word out for casino sites.
  
  
• Porn (sometimes)
  This one is tricky; you can promote porn with Adwords. However there are a lot of off limits areas and you have to be very careful with your keyword strategy. You must stick with very specific queries that would only bring up adult results, and I would recommend phrase and exact matches here.
  So what porn topics are banned? Anything to do with kids, teen pornography (even if the models are 18+ and the site is legal), anything denoting youth (school girl, etc), and non-consensual material or implied non-consensual material. I’m going to guess there’s more that’s banned that Google would prefer to not spell out.
  
  
• Certain Weapons
  Guns, bullets, parts of guns, switchblades, butterfly knives, and brass knuckles are a no-go. You can however promote more utilitarian knives like hunting knives and pocket knives. I also found ads for swords. So despite being dangerous weapons I guess they figured they’re too big an awkward to actually be used effectively for hurting anybody other than yourself playing medieval knight in your mom’s basement.
  
  
• Tobacco
  Cigarettes, pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco, snus, cigars, and anything else full of nicotine that will make you smell bad and slowly kill you is prohibited from Adwords
  
  
• Alcohol (except wine and champagne)
  WTF right? This one blows my mind a little… no beer, no hard alcohol, but wine and champagne is cool. This just strikes me as a little stupid. I guess since a fine Pinot Noir is classier than an 18 pack of Natty Ice it doesn’t need to play by the same rules.
  
  
• Fireworks
  
  “So your gonna' tell me that you don't have no black cats, no roman candles, or screaming mimis? Oh come on man. You got no lady fingers, fuzz buttles, snicker bombs, church burners, finger blasters, gut busters, zippity do das, or crap flappers? You're gonna stand there, owning a fireworks stand, and tell me you don't have no whistling bungholes, no spleen spliters, whisker biscuits, honkey lighters, hoosker doos, hoosker donts, cherry bombs, nipsy daisers, with or without the scooter stick, or one single whistling kitty chaser?” /JoeDirt
  
  If it was in the previous paragraph you can’t promote it. In all fairness you can’t really ship fireworks anyways; the post office gets a little skittish about explosive packages.

No Cheating!

If an item is unethical or gives you an unfair advantage, chances are it’s prohibited from Adwords

• Academic Cheating Services
  This includes test taking services, paper writing services, and anything else that is academically dishonest
  
  
• Drug Test Cheating Services
  You can’t sell “cleansing” teas or your little brother’s clean urine with Adwords, sorry.
  
  
• Illegal Traffic Devices
  Rule of thumb: if you would hide it as fast as you can when you get pulled over, you can’t promote it with Adwords. This includes radar jammers, plate blockers and traffic signal changers. Radar detectors are ok however.
  
  
• Miracle Cures
  This doesn’t cover miracle weight loss pills so much as a magic pill that may virtually cure AIDS and Cancer… unless you ask the FDA who might have some slight disagreements with your claims. While we’re talking drugs and pills, prescription drugs are allowed –if- you are an Adwords approved pharmacy.

Prohibited Scams, Tech, and Marketing Items

There are a lot of scams out there that Google has isolated to be dropped from the Adwords programs. Also any software of services that have an adverse effect on Google or its search results are not allowed either.

• Scams, Phishing, Data entry affiliate sites, e-Gold, Dialers
  If it’s a known scam do yourself a favor and don’t waste your time.
  
  
• Bulk Marketing (E-mail Spam) Products
  If you have a great e-mail list of thousands of e-mails you scraped from sites around the web you can’t promote with Adwords.
  
  
• Hacking & Cracking
  You can’t promote sites that teach you to illegally access software, servers, websites, cell phones, unlock copyright protection, descramble cable, and anything else illegal and hacker-y.
  
  
• Automated Ad Clicking
  Adwords rule number 1, don’t mess with Google’s wallet! Automated ad clicking is a good way to get your Adwords and Adsense accounts shut down in a hurry… oh and they have a word for this - fraud
  
  
• Made For Adsense (MFA) Sites
  Honestly I’m not sure how enforceable this one is, but it’s on the books for good measure.
  
  
• Copyrighted Material You Don’t Own
  So you just burned 500 unauthorized copies of a DVD you bought and you want to sell them? You’re going to have to set up a card table on the sidewalk because Adwords won’t allow it.
  
  
• Webmaster Guidelines Violations
  Don’t openly promote with a Google service services to screw with Google, not smart my friend.

Phew, that’s a lot of prohibited stuff… I hope this was educational for you all. Remember if you can’t bring it on an airplane, do it in front of a police officer, or tell your mom about it you probably can’t use Adwords to promote it.

*note: all prohibited items are from a U.S. point of view!

Organic Results in Google's Right Hand Column?

Today I saw a story on Sphinn from Search Engine Roundtable about Google serving up video ads in search results. Don't worry, I'm not out to rehash this development for the 50th time today... I saw something similar last week -organic video- in the sponsored links column!!! Notice that they aren't ads at all, but youtube videos and some Google book results.

If I had to guess, I'd say Google is experimenting with the effective use of dead space to keep it in people's reading zone. "Tomorrow" isn't really worth bidding on so there is always free real estate on the right hand side that might as well be filled in with relevant content.

I'm really curious to see if organic video will be mixed with Adwords text and video ads. Would it decrease revenue by blocking out spaces on the front page, or encourage more people to look to the right hand column for relevant results?