Early this week, NLAirsoft.com posted about an email from Google about a proposal that the internet search giant will soon not allow businesses to place Adwords about weapons and related products for combat, self-defence, and sport as part of their effort to simplify their Weapons Policy Restriction.  Here's the email which they received (we don't use Google Adsense or Adwords here so we didn't receive this):

Around September, we’ll be clarifying and simplifying our policy on knives, guns, gun parts, and other weapons designed to injure others in combat, self-defense, or sport. Some products that we currently allow won’t be allowed under the new policies. Examples of products that will no longer be allowed include paintball guns, airsoft guns, BB guns, gun scopes, ammunition belts, stun guns, and tactical knives.

Checking further their Dangerous Products or Services Policy, the proposal contains the following related to weapons and weapons accessories:

Guns & parts

Disapproval and suspension reason: "Guns & parts"

• Functional devices that appear to discharge a projectile at high velocity, whether for sport, self-defense, or combat (Note that we err on the side of caution and apply this policy to sporting or recreational guns that can cause serious harm if misused, or that appear to be real guns.)
  • Examples: Handguns, rifles, shotguns, hunting guns, functioning antique guns, airsoft guns, paintball guns, bb guns
• Any part or component that's necessary to the function of a gun or intended for attachment to a gun
  • Examples: Gun scopes, ammunition, ammunition clips or belts

It will be a long list of products that will not be allowed by the Google Adwords Service if there are no changes or strong objections to it by September 2014. And pyros and tactical knives ads are also included in the list.

What our understanding here is that it's more on the Adwords which allow advertisers to be on top of search results or highlighted by the Google search results. But regular search results will still reveal links to firearm and airsoft product pages, news, and stories available online. Thus, what will be suggested is to implement Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for better placement in search results. But doing even proper SEO is a moving target as Google regularly update their search algorithms to prevent some groups and individuals from gaming the system.

As for us, we'd rather recommend to the advertisers, especially the airsoft advertisers to devote their ad budgets to the struggling airsoft news and information websites who actually have airsofters as their audience and work hard to spread the news about airsoft around.  Wouldn't it be best to support them no matter how big or small their readership is? They are not big as Google but sure as hell are helping build the customer base for airsoft business through their efforts to spread news about the hobby everywhere. They deserve the support and it's just a matter of picking the right airsoft websites.