Popular Weblogs Inc. Network blog Engadget appears to be breaking the terms of its contract with Google’s AdSense program. The AdSense program allows website publishers to place up to three ad units on a single page. Blog Herald points to self professed blog comment spammer David Naylor who says he found six placements on an Engadget page. Our research on this page show similar results. We found 5 standard ad units and one, we think, text link.
A very large scrolling screen shot of the entire Engadget page is here for review. We’ve asked Weblogs Inc. Network President Jason Calacanis to comment but have not yet had a reply. Recently, Calacanis claims the blogs in the Weblogs Inc. Network were on track to reach $1 million in Google AdSense revenue this year. Perhaps, now we know how.
Upon further reflection, some speculation in is order. It would be silly for Weblogs Inc. to jeopardize $1 Million by breaking Google AdSense terms. In fact, another Weblogs Inc. blog, Autoblog, is running far more than 3 ads on a page. Keeping that in mind for a moment, Weblogs Inc. was the first company to run Google’s RSS AdSense ads before it was offered to the general market. Make your own conclusions.
UPDATE: In Comments, Jason Calacanis explains and claims, in fact, Weblogs Inc. is not violating Google AdSense terms.
