AdSense and image placement 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. This is important for many AdSense publishers. From the examples that have been provided, if you are using a plugin like AdSense Beautifier, you might be violating Google’s AdSense policies and might want to look into removing the plugin.
I couldn’t agree more, ad publishers should be more respectful to their visitors. Dressing your ads to be something they are not is just wrong, and, like the post says, could land you in being in violation of your advertising partner’s terms of service. Be open in your advertising, place it in a manner that clearly identifies it as an advertisement, do not mislead your visitors into thinking that some link is directly relate to whatever you are posting about because chances are the automatically generated ad is not.
People who are interested in your advertisements will click on the link regardless of the amount of decoration you place on it.
I’m not thrilled about the decision, but at least Google has finally made a clear decision, instead of replying back to different requests with different answers each time.
I was personally warned by Adsense about this. I was running a thumbnail to the left of a 234×60 half banner ad. They gave me 3 days to remove it or face expulsion from their program… Phew! I wish people would stop promoting plugins and advice that could get us banned.