Google AdSense: Alternate Ads And PSAs

Let’s take the concept of AdSense a bit further and check out 2 special case Ads:

One that is served by AdSense as per its wish and the other that is served by

AdSense as per website owner’s wish:


We all know that Google AdSense works by serving targeted Ads to the websites

that are enrolled with the G oogle AdSense program. However, there are

instances when no targeted Ads are available for a website e.g. the website

might be c atering to such a topic or s ubject for which no relevant Ads /advertisers

are available. In such a case, Google serves alternate Ads i.e. content of your

choice. If you have not spec ified any c ontent as Alternate Ads, Google AdSense

program treats PSAs i.e. public service Ads as alternate Ads and serves them on

your website. These PSAs are charitable Ads that don’t contribute to your

revenue. So, unless you are looking to do charity (which could mean less ening of

revenue for you), you must specify Alternate Ads upfront.

Here are the options that you have for alternate Ads (your choice of content):

Color: A number of people use color for alternate Ads. This involves specifying a

valid hexadecimal color code (or you can choose from the color palette provided

by Google) for the alternate ad. T he choice of color would be such that the ad

becomes invisible. This is eas ily achieved by setting the color of the ad same as

the background color of the page.

Image: An image can also be used as an alternate ad. You can either have this

image link to some other web page (in suc h a case you w ill need to specify an

htm l as alternate ad) or you may just use it as such (for, maybe, enhancing the

beauty of your web page).


Another good option is to use ‘Collapsing ad units’. ‘Collapsing ad units’ code

will squeeze the ad units that are not utilized ( ins tead of showing the PSAs) on

your website. This approac h helps in giving a cleaner look to the web page (since

the blank areas or non-ad-bas ed images are done away with). It also helps in

bringing more emphasis to the AdSense Ads that are displayed on the website.