Running Google Ads on the website will impact the Rankings?
-
Hi,
Will Google AdSense those are running above the fold of the website, impact the keywords rankings?
-
I run leaderboard ads above the design, a skyscraper at top left and a rectangle below the first photo in the right column. All of these are visible above the fold. My rankings are great in lots of very difficult SERPs.
The important thing is.... These ads to not compete with my content. My content is clearly visible and perfectly obvious to everyone and anyone who lands on the page.
Also, the ads are not the dumb, irritating, provocative, suggestive stuff that would put off lots of people.
Bottom line... its not HOW MANY. Instead... it is WHERE and WHAT.
-
As tom said it can, how much is too much?
But I would also be worried about turning off users and making your site look spammy.
-
Hi to be precisely in yes or no, my personal observation basis adsense experience is
If you put 1 ad - 728x90 or 468x60 above the fold - it does not make any kind of algorithmic change, This is what we have observed in our own site getting descent traffic of over 1 lac visitors/month
However, more than 1 ad units can actually harm user experience on site as he will only see ads above the fold. For more this is part of Google Webmaster blog. Have highlighted the main aspect
"In our ongoing effort to help you find more high-quality websites in search results, today we’re launching an algorithmic change that looks at the layout of a webpage and the amount of content you see on the page once you click on a result.
As we’ve mentioned previously, we’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.
_We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content. This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page. This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads. _
This algorithmic change noticeably affects less than 1% of searches globally. That means that in less than one in 100 searches, a typical user might notice a reordering of results on the search page. "
-
Hi Ruchi
It can do, if it is overdone. The question is of course, how much is too much?
Here is an excerpt from a great post on the topic from Danny Sullivan:
"How can you tell if you’ve got too many ads above-the-fold? When I talked with the head of Google’s web spam team, Matt Cutts, he said that Google wasn’t going to provide any type of official tools similar to how it provides tools to tell if your site is too slow (site speed is another ranking signal).
Instead, Cutts told me that Google is encouraging people to make use of its Google Browser Size tool or similar tools to understand how much of a page’s content (as opposed to ads) is visible at first glance to visitors under various screen resolutions.
But how far down the page is too far? That’s left to the publisher to decide for themselves. However, the blog post stresses the change should only hit pages with an abnormally large number of ads above-the-fold, compared to the web as a whole:
We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content.
This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page.This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads."
Hope this helps.
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
-
Website using search term as URL brand name to cheat Google
Google has come a long way over the past 5 years, the quality updates have really helped bring top quality content to the top that is relevant for users search terms, although there is one really ANNOYING thing that still has not been fixed. Websites using brand name as service search term to manipulate Google I have got a real example but I wouldn't like to use it in case the brand mentions flags up in their tools and they spot this post, but take this search for example "Service+Location" You will get 'service+location.com' rank #1 Why? Heaven knows. They have less than 100 backlinks which are of a very low, spammy quality from directories. The content is poor compared to the competition and the competitors have amazing link profiles, great social engagement, much better website user experience and the data does not prove anything. All the competitors are targeting the same search term but yet the worst site is ranking the highest. Why on earth is Google not fixing this issue. This page we are seeing rank #1 do not even deserve to be ranking on the first 5 pages.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jseddon920 -
Site Rollback for Careless Website Design That Caused Rank Drop
New PPC Client (out of necessity) had their site redesigned for mobile without much care given to it by a "SEO Expert". None of the meta data was copied over to the new images and pages, much of the old content was simply deleted, intra site links completely changed. Huge hits in organic rank, resulting in traffic declines occurred as their lead volume hit zero the following month (April 21 until Present). Any concerns I should have in doing a simple rollback beyond redirects and GWT (Search Console) ops? Current plan is 1. Setup redirects back to old site 2. Launch PPC campaign to recover call volume and leads. 3. Optimize old site for mobile simultaneously with simple responsive framework for menu, text. 4. Start disavowing poor-quality links that were added (got 10 with spam rating >4). 5. Eventually move them back to Wordpress and the theme they paid for with site content, meta data, etc all in tact.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jclmns0 -
Will I lose Ranking if I switch from Volusion to Big Commerce?
I've had a website with Volusion for years and rank in the top position for most relative keywords. I'm planning to move to Big Commerce because of the limitations with Volusion but I'm worried that my rankings will suffer when I move... is this a valid concern and is there anything I should do to make the transition seamless?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CatrinaSpindler0 -
If a website Uses <select>to dropdown some choices, will Google see every option as Content Or Hyperlink?</select>
If a website Uses <select> to dropdown some choices, will Google see every option as Content Or Hyperlink?</select>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zanox0 -
Google places Ad
Like adwords is their any good way of advertising a business place at Google map? If the answer is yes.Can you please take me through the process and give me rough idea about cost?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | csfarnsworth0 -
Adding index.php at the end of the url effect it's rankings
I have just had my site updated and we have put index.php at the end of all the urls. Not long after the sites rankings dropped. Checking the backlinks, they all go to (example) http://www.website.com and not http://www.website.com/index.php. So could this change have effected rankings even though it redirects to the new url?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | authoritysitebuilder0 -
It Doesn’t Matter Where You Point Links, Google Will Pick The Page
Hi Guys, I have a site that ranks quite well in a very competitive vertical and the company is now planning to do a site relaunch. SEO is very important to them and all of the sites within in the top 10 have the primary keyword in the urls example search: key1 key2 site.com/key1-key2/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VividLime
site.com/ key1key2/
site.com/key1key2.php Our site is the only one that is positioned within the top 10 without the keyword in the url and homepage only listing so the top 10 result looks like search: key1 key2 site.com/key1-key2/ site.com/ key1key2/ site.com/key1key2.php oursite.com sitekey2.com/key1-key2/
key1site.com/key1key2.html Currently we do not have a separate landing page for the target keyword hence why link building is focused on the homepage. As part of the consultation, I recommended we create a landing page for our primary keyword so we get **oursite.com/key1-key2/ **and shift the on-page keyword balance towards this page. the hope is, we get search: key1 key2 site.com/key1-key2/ site.com/ key1key2/ site.com/key1key2.php oursite.com/key1-key2 sitekey2.com/key1-key2/
key1site.com/key1key2.html Would Google simply replace my current domain only list for the most relevant url for a term? Does anyone have any experience with this? Or would i need to build links into the new url for the change to take place. what i'm hoping for and expecting, is for somthing like this to happen http://www.seowizz.net/2011/04/it-doesnt-matter-where-you-point-links-google-will-pick-the-page.html0 -
Can I Improve Organic Ranking by Restrict Website Access to Specific IP Address or Geo Location?
I am targeting my website in US so need to get high organic ranking in US web search. One of my competitor is restricting website access to specific IP address or Geo location. I have checked multiple categories to know more. What's going on with this restriction and why they make it happen? One of SEO forum is also restricting website access to specific location. I can understand that, it may help them to stop thread spamming with unnecessary Sign Up or Q & A. But, why Lamps Plus have set this? Is there any specific reason? Can I improve my organic ranking? Restriction may help me to save and maintain user statistic in terms of bounce rate, average page views per visit, etc...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit1