Google Adwords is still the best way to drive traffic to any website. Sure. It has gotten expensive. Google is not exactly making life easy for its Adwords customers either by changing the rules around all the time and introducing strict policies from time to time. Google has been pretty clear about what it will and won’t allow to be advertised on its network. But a lot of people still get away with a lot of things on Google.

Let’s say you want to pick up an e-book reader and start your search on Google instead of Amazon or B&N. What would you do if you saw the following ads?

Essentially, some of these apps are promising you a lot off on Kindle. Some are comparing a device that is not available for sale with Kindle. Let’s not forget that Kindle and iPad are trademarked terms. And let’s not forget about Amazon Associates Program’s policy either. Use of:

any trademark of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates, or any variation or misspelling of any trademark of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates, in any domain name — for example, a domain name such as “amazon.mydomain.com”, “amaozn.com”, “amazonauctions.net”, “facebook.com/amazondealsgroup,” “endlessboots.com,” “endless.mydomain.com”, “endlss.com,” “kindlemagazines.mydomain.info,” or “kindlewirelessreader.co.uk” would be unsuitable

I am not suggesting that you shouldn’t be aggressive with your Adwords campaign. But this is pretty far pushing it too far. At the end of the day, you could get banned by Amazon and your ads could be removed by Google. Many of those who engage in such activities actually expect that to happen. Their business is short-term, and they don’t plan on making long-term money this way. But this strategy is risky, and your competitors will most likely report you sooner rather than later. If you make a lot of money from Adwords or Amazon, you want to stay as far away from these practices as possible. The consequences could be very harsh.