Google Ads pushing above the fold - Affect on Organic?

by GGpaul
7 replies
  • SEO
  • |
So,

With the right side bar ads moving UP along with PLA's, and along with local maps etc.

How concern are you with ORGANIC traffics since position #1 will fall below the fold? Or will that not take any type of effect for those of you that run FULL on organic? I'm assuming, with an authority site it shouldn't hurt your traffic that bad with long tail keywords etc.


I'd like someone to chime in basically and see where SEO / organic will go from here. And no, I don't want to hear "SEO is dead". I want to know what you / or what you've heard from peers in the industry have said with this diretion.
#ads #affect #fold #google #organic #pushing
  • Profile picture of the author paulgl
    #1 does not drop below the fold, at least for me.

    Google does not include ads on every search.

    They have a max of 4 on top, but only for very highly
    monetized searches. I imagine the vast majority
    of searches are not of that type.

    Just for fun, I did a search for the most searched
    for term on google at this minute.

    I got zero ads.

    Combined with the 3 max on the bottom, the max number
    of ads shown is actually smaller now.

    Perhaps one would need to gear their sites for
    shtuff that is not so highly monetized.

    If you are not a lawyer, dentist, plastic surgeon,....
    then you have no reason to exist in serps
    for those terms in the first place.

    The funny thing is, people were going gaga over
    some nonissue update about google and mobile.

    And now mobile ads just might "trump" organics
    by increasing ads there....that is rich!

    Paul
    Signature

    If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10582823].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author GGpaul
      Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

      #1 does not drop below the fold, at least for me.

      Google does not include ads on every search.

      They have a max of 4 on top, but only for very highly
      monetized searches. I imagine the vast majority
      of searches are not of that type.

      Just for fun, I did a search for the most searched
      for term on google at this minute.

      I got zero ads.

      Combined with the 3 max on the bottom, the max number
      of ads shown is actually smaller now.

      Perhaps one would need to gear their sites for
      shtuff that is not so highly monetized.

      If you are not a lawyer, dentist, plastic surgeon,....
      then you have no reason to exist in serps
      for those terms in the first place.

      The funny thing is, people were going gaga over
      some nonissue update about google and mobile.

      And now mobile ads just might "trump" organics
      by increasing ads there....that is rich!

      Paul
      Thanks Paulgl.

      My concern would be for ecommerce then. For instance, let's say I'm selling a brand - "Obey clothing" You'll then have obey clothing ads from top cmpetitie companies like shopbop, asos, etc. Which now will be above the fold. I guess from an affiliate stand point we shouldn't worry. But I'm guessing the big companies are the ones getting raped.
      Signature

      RIP Dad Oct 14 1954 - Mar 14 2015.

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10583930].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
    Originally Posted by GGpaul View Post


    I'd like someone to chime in basically and see where SEO / organic will go from here. And no, I don't want to hear "SEO is dead". I want to know what you / or what you've heard from peers in the industry have said with this diretion.
    SEO IS DEAD AND THE COFFIN IS ABOUT TO CLOSE



    Actually I am not so far from that. Only to me it is dead for some searches and I think now white hat is the only thing that makes sense (I'll explain that in a second post).

    It kind of relates to what Paul said. some searches now have no ads so SEO is alive and kicking on those. but lets be honest -

    ranking number one now means squat for a whole heap of searches. Not only are you really the fifth result but with definitions , maps and other things Google puts up first you are likely to be 6 or 7th. On those searches ranking second and third puts you waaaaaaaay down the page.

    So to me we have a new thing that needs to be done in terms of SEO research - Our keyword research now has to incorporate not just how many searches a word gets, what competition is doing and how strong it is but now we have to check the result page and how it is composed to see if its worth it.

    Local Seo is in much better place though.

    Lets take tshirt when I search

    https://www.google.com/search?q=t+sh...m=122&ie=UTF-8

    I get four results and then a big locals map with picture of t-shirt over the right hand side. So the non local search result position 1 is like where number 10 used to be. As a new national T shirt company do I really want to jump in there and spend the capital when in many main cities thats what they are going to get - position 10?

    So yeah I think SEo is pretty close to dead for some terms in a way it never has been before and thats just one way. Another announcement this week just solidifies how another HUGE area of SEO is taking a big hit and why am glad I started preparing to go all white hat in 2015 (still have not entirely made it yet).

    Good news is that if you decide to skip those terms and do the research to find the pages not showing any ads then you stand to have even better results. However the buying intent has to be quite low on those keywords.
    Signature

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10584093].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
    I tend to think Google must have some doozies in the next penguin update why its taking so long. So I expect a lot of Black hat SEO strategies limping along to get another big slap. However already this week Google completely shut down Pagerank public data

    Now that's not a stunner to anyone in the know (which isn't the people who now post here very often). None of them was surprised or used pagerank given it had not been updated. in years. However it still had a little utility. You couldn't trust the numbers but on older sites it still gave you a look at how juice would flow through a site. You could still make a few good guesses

    We now have no idea whatsoever past or present of a site's link profile. If I'm google I now or already have changed the key sites used for internal PR slowly. Anyway this N/A for every site now means for Seo purposes there is no even remotely close way to determine the SEO strength of a page you are getting or buying a link on.

    I've read some people say they can tell by looking at the links but meh...yeah maybe if you know some of the sites but without dependable metrics there's no way you can look at pages with no metrics of sites you don't know and determine their strength.

    Somebody just turned off the lights completely on link buying for SEO. That whole area of SEO is near death with ahrefs and majestic being probably the best to take over but of course not as good as Pagerank.

    God help us all if some get their way and make DA and PA the standards. Even total junk will cost cash. So frankly thats why I said white hat to me makes sense and will continue to do well.

    A) I can't be sure being top three in organics is going to give me the kind of traffic it used to.
    B) The best so called black hat strategies to get powerful links is now flying blind.

    However if real pages with real visitors to that page or site are giving me links even if I don't get the traffic from search engines I am also getting some traffic from links on pages that people actually may read. For that reason buying links will still be good but now if you are smart for traffic more and rankings secondarily.

    All the other black hat strategies involve links on pages where no one or almost no one is reading. So you "rank" and end up at number 2 with like the space of 9 spots above you taken - big whoop on those searches.

    Get link with traffic and you still get something. I am thinking more traffic and local only on a lot of searches.
    Signature

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10584161].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author GGpaul
      Thanks for the responses Mike and Paulgl.

      Here's what I'm noticing, and for THOSE that do freelancing / client for ACTUAL medium - big companies...

      CEO's will challenge you. They're going to ask you guys what determines a site with a DA, PA , TF of x,y,z it's worth / value?

      But now we have to look at the bigger picture and not just those damn metrics from Moz. What about "What's expected referring traffic?" "How many followers on IG / FB? " "Expected revenue?" "What determines too many OBL for a big blogger like theblondesalad.com?"

      I'm not a HUGE fan of moz's metrics to be honest.

      Anyway enough of my tangent.

      As for affiliate marketing, I can see people will still be okay as no one is really going to be spending $$ on ads on keywords "What is the best way to lose 298235983598% body fat." (I'm exaggerating, bad example I know).

      But now the big boys, the ecommerce sites, competition is getting steep. Ads above the fold, prices are going to spike high for CPC. Then you have the local maps..

      Should be interesting..

      I have one site that has about 25 PBN's so far. But now I'm thinking that these PBN's didn't do shit. And the only thing that's ranking is "aged" and internal linking / creating an authority site while honing down / tightening up my title tags and heading tags.


      Damn, we're starting a thread that probably half of the WF doesn't even know what we're saying.

      I can't wait for some of the old school dudes to chime in! Sup Yukon, godoveryou, Mike Friedman
      Signature

      RIP Dad Oct 14 1954 - Mar 14 2015.

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10585435].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
        Originally Posted by GGpaul View Post


        I'm not a HUGE fan of moz's metrics to be honest.
        The only one I give credence to a little bit is Majestic's trustflow but I have suspicion that now that Pagerank is entirely gone DA and PA are going to be the thing people push because they are a bit easier to game up.

        But now the big boys, the ecommerce sites, competition is getting steep. Ads above the fold, prices are going to spike high for CPC. Then you have the local maps..

        Should be interesting..
        I got to hand it to Google. Pushing people to go White hat is what they wanted and I think with the changes made and with a Penguin update they will achieve it for the most popular very competitive terms. the longer tail as you stated not so much. Where no ads or only a few appear SEO just got better
        Signature

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10592340].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author sallaid
    it really depends on the keywords. for some keywords people don't even look at the top ads and for some it's the first thing they click on.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10586083].message }}

Trending Topics