Don’t Change the AdSense Code

This one is right up there with the AdSense Don’t in the preceding section. Don’t change the AdSense code. Google takes creating AdSense code very seriously. Although a program generates the code for your Web site, that program is constantly tweaked and improved (just like everything Google). The code AdSense generates for you is exactly what Google needs to provide the ads that will appear on your Web page as well as to track the results to those ads, which are important factors. Keep in mind that AdSense works only because AdWords works. The only way to prove that either one of them works is in the tracking that Google does. For that tracking to be accurate, the code provided to make ads appear on your Web site must remain intact, as written. The only exceptions to this are changing style elements of the code, such as colors, and that should be done only with the AdSense code generator. If you create an ad and then re-design your site to have different colors, you can always go back to AdSense and edit the ad that you’ve created. If you’re thinking of messing with anything that’s not style related, however, don’t — it’s just not worth the grief that you get. What is that grief? Say it with me: Getting banned from the AdSense program.