Google Grants Cannabis Group $240,000 in AdWords Money & Other Products

Google's got $5 on it ... er, make that $240,000. This is according to last week's announcement from a medical cannabis nonprofit.

According to Michigan Compassion, Google awarded the group $240,000 annually in AdWords advertising through Google Grants as well as the use of other Google products for nonprofits.

If you're unfamiliar with Google Grants, it's the nonprofit version of AdWords launched in 2003, which allows participating nonprofits to spend up to $10,000 per month in grants on AdWords.

The grant for Michigan Compassion advertising doesn't seem to fit neatly within any of Google's AdWords policies. According to its guidelines, there are certain restrictions on prescription drugs and even tobacco, but since Michigan Compassion is not a direct retailer for prescription marijuana, rather an organization dedicated to the awareness of the benefits of medical cannabis, the guidelines could be different.

It looks as though an organization like this could be given the same allowances that say, vaporizers are in AdWords. While Google does not allow the direct sale of drug paraphernalia, it does allow the sale of vaporizers "when promoted as a humidifier or as an aromatherapy device to relieve respiratory symptoms."

We reached out to Google for some clarification on the grant and any restrictions that ads from Michigan Compassion might have; we were curious about a few things:

• Will ads from Michigan Compassion be assigned a family status or non-family status?
• Will ads be targeted only to Michigan or also to other states allowing medical marijuana?
• How does Google distinguish between the promotion of tobacco versus promotion of cannabis in AdWords?

A Google spokesperson had this to say about the Michigan Compassion AdWords grant:

"Our regular Grants program was approved for this organization as a certified 501(3)(c) non-profit to run ads that comply with our policies. Specifically, their ads are designated as non-family safe, are approved in states where medical marijuana is legal in the U.S., and they are not permitted to sell the product or paraphernalia on their site."

Google’s Matt Cutts: Same Ad To Organic Ratio As Google, You’re Safe From The Top-Heavy Alogrithm

At SMX Advanced tonight, Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts announced that if you have the same or less ads than Google does in their search results, then you are safe from their top heavy algorithm.

In short, if your ad to organic ratio is the same or less than what you see in Google’s search results, you are safe.

This came up durin the Ask The SEO session, where Matt Cutts was encouraged to come up on stage to answer some questions.

One question was around why does Google have so many ads in the organic result. Danny Sullivan joked, would Google penalize Google for top heavy algorithm? Matt responded seriously that even if the search results pages were indexed by Google, the algorithm that determines if a web page should be penalized or impacted negatively by the top heavy update, would not be triggered.

So you can use Google search results pages as a benchmark for not going overboard on the top heavy update.

Google Facing U.S. Antitrust Probe Over Display Ad Sales

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is on the brink of launching a fresh antitrust probe into Google, over alleged misconduct over how it handles its display advertising business, Reuters reported.

An unnamed source confirmed the news to Reuters late last week, adding that the investigation is still in its early stages and that the FTC had not yet sent out civil investigative demands ordering Google to hand over data.

The probe will focus on the tools Google purchased from display ad company Doubleclick in 2007. The FTC reportedly began the investigation following demands from a number of unnamed competing display advertising companies, which accused Google of using its position in the display ads market to favor its own services.

The FTC has mounted antitrust probes against Google in the past. The FTC previously mounted an investigation into whether Google was using its search dominance to promote its own services more than those of its competitors. That antitrust probe ended in January, with Google only making a couple of minor changes.

Elsewhere on the antitrust front, Google's business in Canada is also about to face a formal inquiry from Canada's Competition Bureau, the Financial Post reported May 17. The agency has yet to reveal the scope of the investigation or asked for any documentation from Google.