Good to know. Thanks Netmeg.

From the link Netmeg posted (I added BOLD to a few important words)

What does this mean for you as a publisher? If you’ve

previously selected ‘Show public service ads’

in the ‘Backup ads’ section of the new AdSense interface (or the ‘Alternate ads or colors’ section in the old AdSense interface),

you’ll begin to see

that when we’re unable to serve paid ads to your pages,

a blank space

will appear instead of a PSA.

Sounds like going back through your ad code and modifying it could be the order of the day for publishers who chose to show PSAs. Got ads in a hundred channels and a spare afternoon to fix that? :)

I kinda like showing a PSA now and then. I think it is good PR for a site.

I kinda like showing a PSA now and then. I think it is good PR for a site.

There are a lot of charitable/non-profit organizations now that have identifiable political leanings or agendas. Or maybe politics has got itself involved in too many things.

But either way, you never know which visitor will have a negative reaction vs. positive reaction that I personally don't believe the risk is worth the reward.

I've seen some pleas for money on some sites that caused me to question doing business with the site.


FarmBoy

I kinda like showing a PSA now and then. I think it is good PR for a site.

Consider setting up an alternate ad of your own that gives exposure to a charity of your own choosing.

What a great idea, Buckworks!

I have to wonder if G is gearing up to turn off a lot of Adsense ads.

There is so much talk about sites like 'content farms' allegedly polluting the SERPs and that a solution is forthcoming. Wouldn't the easiest solution be for G to decrease the money that they are paid for adsense and make their business model less profitibale?
Normally, G would not do this if the advertisers have been happy with the quality of clicks that they get from those ads. Could we be on the verge of seeing a change in how G defines 'quality' in the adsense algos?
Where's my tinfoil hat? :)

Great. Hundreds of pages to recode by hand.
Nope. Not gonna do it.
It will be blank spaces for me, I'm afraid.
I will fix my top pages, and just let the rest go.
So many other things to deal with.

Sally, check how much editing is possible within your AdSense account.

Go to AdSense Setup >> Manage Ads, select a channel to edit, and you can specify alternate ads in there.

Your comment sounds like you're not using includes for your AdSense code. That's well worth considering, because include files can be reused on as many pages as you want which can then be updated by editing just the one file.

Every page has one unique channel.
Many pages are "old code".
So, changing the ad codes involves editing EVERY one, one at a time, does it not?
.

Ouch! Easier would be to set an alternate ad to the charity of your choice in your adsense account for each channel than doing all that editing work. All your channels will use your new alternate ads.

You don't have to change ad codes. Adsense will only stop showing PSA ads. The other commercial ads will keep showing fine with your existing code. If you set your alternate ad in your channels, when there is no commercial ad available to show, it will show your charity or whatever you set in your channel.