The Google Opinion Rewards for Publishers Policies are designed to maintain a high-quality publisher network for surveys served by Google Opinion Rewards (“GOR surveys”) and to provide valid data to survey creators. Publisher use of Google Opinion Rewards is governed by the contract in place between the publisher and Google, subject to the terms of Google's privacy policy, and the policies outlined below. Failure to comply with these policies may result in the disabling of surveys from serving on a publisher’s site and/or disabling of the publisher’s Google Opinion Rewards account.
AdSense Account
Publisher must have active AdSense accounts to receive payments for GOR surveys served on their sites, although publishers are not required to place AdSense ads on their sites.
Invalid clicks and impressions
Publishers must not answer the questions of GOR surveys served on their sites or use any other means, whether directly or through a third party, to artificially inflate completion rate and/or revenue per thousand impressions (“RPM”), including but not limited to:
- repeated manual clicks or impressions;
- automated click and impression generating tools;
- use of robots or deceptive software;
- asking others to click on surveys (e.g., offering or promising compensation to users for viewing and/or completing surveys);
- using deceptive implementation methods to obtain clicks (e.g., promising to raise money for third parties who click on surveys);
- directing end user attention to surveys using images or graphical gimmicks (e.g., arrows);
- promoting clicks or completion of surveys through unsolicited mass emails or advertisements on third-party sites; and
- formatting surveys or site content such that the end user is not able to distinguish between site content and survey content.
Publishers are strictly prohibited from clicking repeatedly on GOR surveys displayed on their sites.
Content guidelines
Sites that display GOR surveys must not contain:
- user generated content (e.g., forums);
- pornographic, adult or mature content (including suggestive or sexual dialogue, language, and situations);
- violent content;
- content related to racial intolerance or advocacy against any individual, group or organization;
- excessive profanity
- hacking/cracking content;
- gambling or casino-related content;
- illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia content;
- content relating to sales or distribution of (i) beer or hard alcohol; (ii) tobacco or tobacco-related products; (iii) prescription drugs; (iv) weapons or ammunition (e.g. firearms, firearm components, fighting knives, stun guns); (v) products that are replicas or imitations of designer or other goods; or (vi) coursework or student essays;
- content regarding programs that compensate users for answering surveys or offers, performing searches, surfing websites, or reading emails; and
- any other content that is illegal, promotes illegal activity or infringes on the legal rights of others, including without limitation any unauthorized copyrighted content.
Publishers must also comply with the webmaster quality guidelines.
Survey behavior
Publishers must not (i) alter GOR surveys code and (ii) manipulate the standard behavior, targeting, or delivery of GOR surveys in any way that is not explicitly permitted by Google.
Survey performance
To maintain an active GOR account, publishers must receive GOR survey impressions within the last 30 days with better than 10% completion rates, and a minimum of 1,000 GOR survey impressions per day on a single publisher site.
Survey placement
Publishers may only display GOR surveys on premium site content. GOR surveys must not be placed on, within, or alongside:
- pop-ups, pop-unders, interstitials, page overlays, emails, rss feeds, chat programs, or software;
- a floating box script, a modal prompt, or any other means that does not conform with the GOR designed inline prompt;
- any other surveys;
- a site with elements that obscure the surveys or alternately, where the surveys obscure elements of the site, including any overlapping or blocking of ads on the site;
- any non-content-based site such as: homepage, section pages, landing page, about us, error 404 pages, exit pages, etc.;
- a gateway to content on a different page or links on a page;
- pages with content that does not match the set language of their site;
- sites published specifically for the purpose of showing surveys or ads;
- sites whose content or URL could confuse users into thinking it is associated with Google due to the misuse of logos, trademarks or other brand features;
- other Google products or services in a manner that violates the policies of that product or service
GOR surveys must also not be placed on sites that:
- are loaded with software that can trigger pop-ups;
- redirect users to unwanted websites, or
- modify browser settings, or otherwise interfere with site navigation. For clarification, this prohibition precludes the use of any system that overlays or creates ad space on a given site without the express permission of the site owner, including without limitation toolbars.
Publishers must ensure that their partners and affiliates do not use such methods to direct traffic to the publishers’ sites containing GOR surveys code. Publishers must also ensure that the sites that they monetize through GOR comply with Google's Landing Page Quality Guidelines.
Site behavior
Sites showing GOR surveys should be easy for users to navigate. Sites may not change user preferences, redirect users to unwanted websites, initiate downloads, include malware, or contain pop-ups or pop-unders that interfere with site navigation.
Additional surveys and services
To prevent end-user confusion, publishers must not display GOR surveys on sites that also contain other surveys or services formatted to use the same layout and colours as the GOR prompts on that site.
Data Restrictions
Publishers must not measure user behavior, individual users or individual responses through GOR surveys engagement, third-party measuring solutions, or any other means. While publishers may run GOR surveys on their own sites to gain insights into their users’ interests in aggregate, they do not have access to individual user responses.