One site claimed that adsense tricks does not violate Google terms and conditions and the other site claimed that it is not against the policy. So to stop the commotion I will discuss what does Google try to imply. You as a publisher are permitted to make a background image as long as it wouldn’t ask your readers to click the ads or draw unnatural attention to your ads. In other words, you are on the right manner if your ads don’t encourage users to click on by using misleading symbols, images that are not related to the ads. See below examples.

The second example is a violation to Google because the webmaster obviously make an alteration in colors and border to facilitate blending of ads in his/her site requirements. The url part is of the same color as the background and this can lead to fraud click. The ads also try to appear as a related topic on the owner’s blog where in reality it’s an ad.

In addition to this placing background images behind the ads is violation to Google’s TOS. Overlapping images, pop ups, and tables should be avoided. The code in the adsense box doesn’t need to be modified.

To make the policy clear, just avoid bringing undue attention to your background ads. Google insists that background images are fine so long as the ads are clearly portrayed as ads, and clearly distinguished from the content. Below image is from one website offering Google adsense background with Google approval. There is no format and changes made with the code here.

The second background image is also approved by Google. Their reason is the webmaster clearly separated her ads from her post content, placed it in the sidebar and is obvious that they are ads. To be more clear, it all depends on the implementation. A click should be from an interested reader rather than a deceiving publisher.a quaff swims like a trash can.