Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How Google Adwords Can Impact SEO Ranking ?
-
Hi SEO Gurus, I have a question.
How Google Adwords Can Impact SEO Ranking ?
Positive , negative or neutral impact?I will appreciate if you will provide detailed answer
Thank you for your time
webdeal
-
I'm also wondering at the confident boasts in the various responses...
I actually came to this page because I have the same question "How Google Adwords Can Impact SEO Ranking ?" My interest came up as I was looking at the "landing page experience" part of the Quality Score.
The section on Google's support page (https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2404197) seems to imply that Google crawls and checks/indexes the landingpage to score it. I'm wondering if these pages are added to your indexed pages as reported in Webmaster Tools? Is Google taking this page into account for organic results? If the page was already indexed for SEO, does this 'second' scan impact the your SEO performance of the page. Or if the page is for SEA only; how do you prevent it from being indexed for organic results?
-
Google wants there to be a completely fair way to bid on keywords that you are not SEO-perfect for. CPC can be used as a general indicator for competitiveness of the industry, but it's not directly considered when ranking.
-
I'm amazed at the confidence on this post. Why wouldn't Google use quality score on CPC keywords as a factor in organic results for the targeted page? It's real-world input from actual people via click-through rate.
-
The roi value of doing ppc for seo is often not their. Most ppc is sales targeted and that doesnt help seo which is what others where trying to say.
My comment was just saying that at times if you know what your doing it can help seo but its not cheap and often not worth it.
-
Correct
In short - Yes it could help seo but not because google favors ppc - Targeted traffic to quality materia can l= links and shares
-
Dana,
I can understand your point....but David Konigsberg his answer below, says that the Adwords can help....His point is valuable too.
I am confused...
Dmitriy
-
Basically you want to say that the Adwords can be a "tool" for improving link sharing ....
-
I totally agree with you Naina....although I don't practice what I preach,yet. I firmly believe that it is in your own (or your clent's) best interest, for both cost and results, to create completely separate pages for PPC and for organic SEO.
-
AdWords can improve SEO if you are sending traffic to your guides and link bait which gets links and shares
-
I totally agree with you and have seen the same thing myself.
The other positive aspect of running PPC ads is that it increases your exposure (both search and display), and leads to a rise in branded searches. Branded searches, like direct traffic, often convert pretty nicely, and helps to send more signals to Google that you're a brand and should the lovely treatment they often provide to brands. So I do think there are residual benefits to ppc advertising for SEO.
-
I have noticed a very strange thing through my research for around two months. It is that Adwords can harm your normal SEO if you are not playing it intelligent. Let me tell you what I did to find it out.
I took a website and started Adwords campaign with it. Soon I noticed that the main keywords of the campaign did not have good Quality Scores. I tried and tested with multiple Ad Texts, increased the budget, and changed keywords' match cases. It worked as it normally does with Adwords campaign, but did not bring the Quality Score past 5.
I now took the different approach, I started optimizing the landing page. Optimized page load time, images, links and various other things. Brought the page load time to 3 seconds - it was indeed impressive. But, it did not do much with the quality scores, it was around 7 now.
Finally, I started working with landing page keyword placements. Many changes, not frequent, i took at least 4 days to makes changes. Now, I placed keywords in all areas, it was not overly done. But yes, it was more than the usual density. I was aware that it could make the page invite Penguin. But, to my surprise, the quality score on ads lifted up to 9 and even 10 on many keywords. it was great as I was now paying less for each keyword on Adwords. But, you know what! It was caught by Penguin finally. It was to happen, I knew it.
Now see, while an overly optimized page started doing well with Google's Paid search - Adwords, it fell a prey to Penguin in Organic searches.
What I learned? I learned not to use your existing website page as Adwords landing page. Create new ones for Adwords separately.
So to your question, Adwords do not help SEO, rather it harms it.
Thanks
-
BOTTOM LINE: Adwords has NO effect on Ranking.
You can use Adwords to find better converting keywords and THEN target those keywords in SEO.
-
I agree completely with Marie. However, I do think that Google Adwords ads can have a positive impact on how much revenue your good organic rankings produce. In terms of dominating Page 1 results, if you have good organic ranking (say, in the top 5) and you also have excellent paid placement (in the top 3 od paid ads), and you are ranking for images, and you are ranking for videos, and you are ranking in Google shopping....all of this is going to have a collective effect.
If you have that kind of presence, you are bound to gain aggregate value for your organic listings because, if you are marketing well, your traffic will go up, click-through rate will go up and your conversion rate will go up. I firmly believe that if you are improving those things, your rankings will improve also.
That being said, PPC, if it's really well done, can augment your results and could possibly have a residual effect that does benefit your SEO
One other consideration is that any advertising you do, whether it's PPC or print or radio or TV ads, it augments Direct traffic. Direct traffic, in my mind is the golden ticket. Anyone directly typing your URL into their search bar is already your friend. If you can increase your direct traffic pool via PPC, then it's worth every penny.
Hope this is helpful!
Dana
P.S. My statements are based on years of observation. When we've advertised on Google Adwords our visits from organic and direct traffic increased. When we didn't, it decreased....Keep in mind, this was for keywords for which we ranked on the same page for organic and paid results. Sounds like fuel for a future blog post for me!
-
Adwords really don't have any effect on your site's rankings at all. The links that come from the ads are nofollowed.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does having multiple Domain aliases hurt SEO rank ?
Our company having multiple domain aliases (DIfferent TLD) like example.com, .net, .org, .club, .win to one site (Same Content). We do this because our country ISP is blocking a few of the domain aliases. Question: Does this hurt the SEO rank? What approach is the best for us to gain SEO Rank?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | missionunpossible0 -
How can I make a list of all URLs indexed by Google?
I started working for this eCommerce site 2 months ago, and my SEO site audit revealed a massive spider trap. The site should have been 3500-ish pages, but Google has over 30K pages in its index. I'm trying to find a effective way of making a list of all URLs indexed by Google. Anyone? (I basically want to build a sitemap with all the indexed spider trap URLs, then set up 301 on those, then ping Google with the "defective" sitemap so they can see what the site really looks like and remove those URLs, shrinking the site back to around 3500 pages)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bryggselv.no0 -
SEO Impact of External links in JS tag
We have our JS tag and iframe tag being used over by 100 leading websites. What would be the SEO impact if we added a follow link in the iframe. Would it have any negative impact ? Vivek
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kvivek050 -
My site shows 503 error to Google bot, but can see the site fine. Not indexing in Google. Help
Hi, This site is not indexed on Google at all. http://www.thethreehorseshoespub.co.uk Looking into it, it seems to be giving a 503 error to the google bot. I can see the site I have checked source code Checked robots Did have a sitemap param. but removed it for testing GWMT is showing 'unreachable' if I submit a site map or fetch Any ideas on how to remove this error? Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SolveWebMedia0 -
Why is Google ranking irrelevant / not preferred pages for keywords?
Over the past few months we have been chipping away at duplicate content issues. We know this is our biggest issue and is working against us. However, it is due to this client also owning the competitor site. Therefore, product merchandise and top level categories are highly similar, including a shared server. Our rank is suffering major for this, which we understand. However, as we make changes, and I track and perform test searches, the pages that Google ranks for keywords never seems to match or make sense, at all. For example, I search for "solid scrub tops" and it ranks the "print scrub tops" category. Or the "Men Clearance" page is ranking for keyword "Women Scrub Pants". Or, I will search for a specific brand, and it ranks a completely different brand. Has anyone else seen this behavior with duplicate content issues? Or is it an issue with some other penalty? At this point, our only option is to test something and see what impact it has, but it is difficult to do when keywords do not align with content.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lunavista-comm0 -
Domain Forwarding - SEO Impacts?
I have a site that has been active for years - thinkbiglearnsmart.com. Awhile ago I had purchased about 50 domain names that were relevant to my company. I still have those urls and would like to use them to point to different pages on my site - just because they have good key words in the URLs. For example - one is dreamweavertrainingclassesonlinelive.com. Currently they are all redirecting to my homepage. A. is that hurting me? B. I would like to redirect to the more relevant page. ie the page dedicated to Dreamweaver training (http://thinkbiglearnsmart.com/dreamweaver-creative-cloud-training-course/ ) Will this hurt my Dreamweaver keyword for example because there is already a 301 redirect on that page from a very old Dreamweaver link which was something like thinkbiglearnsmart.com/dreamweaver C. On my hosting account where I can select where the URL forwards to - it has an option for "Location forwarding" and "Frame forwarding" - currently they are set to Frame forwarding - which one is best? Any help is much appreciated!!! Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webbmason0 -
Is Google indexing Mp3 audio and MIDI music files? Can that cause any duplicate problems?
Hello, I own virtualsheetmusic.com website and we have several thousands of media files (Mp3 and MIDI files) that potentially Google can index. If that's the case, I am wondering if that could cause any "duplicate" issues of some sort since many of such media files have exact file names or same meta information inside. Any thoughts about this issue are very welcome! Thank you in advance to anyone.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau0 -
Can a competitor close your business on Google Places?
One of my listings says it has been closed and the business is not closed. On Google + / Google places there is a field that allows users to check that claims the business is closed. Can they actually close it? Your Google Places listing has been updated Dear Google Places user, Google has updated your listing data on our consumer properties such as Google and Google Maps to more accurately reflect the latest information we have about your business. We use many sources to determine the accuracy of our listing data and to provide the best possible experience for business owners and consumers who use Google and Google Maps to find local information. Based on our sources, the following listing has been marked as closed: Company info... If you disagree with the changes we have made, please visit your Place Page to edit your listing. Note that if you are an AdWords or Boost customer, your ads will be unaffected by this change and will continue to display the listing information you have provided in Google Places. To manage your online advertisements, please sign into Google Places or Google AdWords. For more information about updates to claimed listings, please visit:http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1318197 Sincerely,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEODinosaur
The Google Places Team |0