AdSense Myths: What's True and What Isn't

If you read AdSense help forums enough, you will soon discover a ton of common myths about AdSense, how it works, how ads are assigned, and so on. In this post I shall list several of the most common AdSense myths. Some of these myths are just plain wrong, others are often stated as fact but with no authoritative evidence to corroborate or discount them, so they may be true.

After each "myth" I am indicating in parentheses my opinion as to whether the myth is untrue or just unsubstantiated ("unsub"). Where applicable, I am also hyperlinking my opinion to other blog posts or articles of mine that express the background for my belief.

1. Google gives more weight to words in bold (<b>) tags when allocating the ads to display (unsub)
   
2. Google gives more weight to words in H1 tags when allocating the ads to display (unsub)
   
3. Google uses the keywords meta tag to determine the ads to display (unsub)
   
4. The higher your Google Pagerank, the better paying ads you get (untrue)
   
5. You are more likely to get CPM ads if you select the "image ads only" option (untrue)
   
6. The main source of differences in earnings per click is Google's "smart pricing" (untrue)
7. You may not display any other ads on the same page as AdSense ads (untrue)
8. You may not display any other ads that are related to the content of the page on the same page as AdSense ads (untrue)
9. It is forbidden to edit the color codes of your ads directly in the Javascript code, you must do it via the AdSense setup interface (untrue)
10. Google will close your AdSense account if your CTR is too high (untrue/unsure!)
    

Disclaimer: As stated, I am merely expressing my opinion as to whether these myths are true or false. Act on my opinion at your own risk!

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