FINALLY Got #1 in Google! (is adsense part of the ranking algorithm?)

by doop

Posted: 13 years ago 17 replies

Hey everyone,

Here's a short story you may find interesting.

We've been trying to rank one of our new sites in Google for the past few weeks for a keyword with:

21,100,000 competing pages and
14,800 searches per month

We managed to get to page 1 pretty quickly but seemed to get stuck at positions 4-10.

Our site is actually a paid service and doesn't have any advertising so our initial application for adsense was denied (we've never tried advertising as a revenue stream instead we focus on products/services)

We signed up to commission junction put a few ads on the site and applied again to google. Suddenly we were approved instantly.

We put on a single ad block 2 days ago.

Checking Analytics today we've suddenly jumped to #1!!!

So this leaves me wondering:

Is this a coincidence?
Have you experienced something similar?
is Google's mantra of "Do No Evil" really something a little more sinister?

#adsense #algorithm #finally #google #part #ranking

Will Edwards 13 years ago

Interesting post. You will probably have to wait a while to see if your site drops back to its normal position on page #1 before you can draw any proper conclusion. But, I must confess, the same thought had occurred to me in the past.

Will
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- Bill Farnham 13 years ago
  
  Keep in mind Google will serve up 'personalized results' that show your favorite websites, or sites you've gone to before in the top spots.
  
  I onced rank #2 for a keyphrase I wasn't even targeting although the keyphrase was part of the long tail I was targeting. But I realized it was just Google doing me a 'favor'. There was no way in the world I would have ranked for the short tail given that website.
  
  Not saying that is the case here, just throwing that out...
  
  ~Bill
  
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  AlTheGr8 13 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Bill Farnham
  
  Keep in mind Google will serve up 'personalized results' that show your favorite websites, or sites you've gone to before in the top spots.
  
  Bill is absolutely correct. The easiest way to check if that is the case is to switch your browser to private browsing mode (a.k.a. porn mode). Use Ctrl+Shift+P in both IE and FireFox or Ctrl+Shift+N in Chrome. In private mode your browser "forgets" all cookies and cache. Repeat your search and see if you are still #1 for that term.
  
  Good luck.
  
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- Defunct 13 years ago
  
  Coincidence...
  
  Go look and see how many top results have ad sense on them, it's not related.
  
  Sites go up and down all the time, depends on competition for that keyword and backlinking your own site.
  
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Owen Smith 13 years ago

I would get a few backlinks from edu websites under your belt. This can only help.

Regards
Owen
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Owen Smith 13 years ago

I personally look at the backlinks of my competitor also and try and gain backlinks from the same websites
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Kael41 13 years ago

Adsense has noooo bearing on where you are positioned in the serps. In fact, the index that the adsense googlebot uses is not even related to the SERP index.
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redfoxseo 13 years ago

I agree it may sound like adsense is part of it but I dought it.
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Kayden Kross 13 years ago

clear you cookie, and try it again
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stacyk 13 years ago

I think this is pure coincidence. I could be wrong but I run many adsense sites. Never seen or felt this sort of movement after the addition of adsense.
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whitebread 13 years ago

make sure you are not logged in to your Gmail account, google may just be doing you a favor. Clear your cookies and cache and search your keyword again and see the results.
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iloveseo 13 years ago

I would say it's just a coincidence or may be your site actually received some good backlinks that did the trick.
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jhonsean 13 years ago

Like everyone said here in this thread its a coincidence that occur in your site but i think it will go for normal flow when the time matures just like google.
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Jordan Kovats 13 years ago

I don't believe that either, otherwise everyone would add Adsense to "level the playing field" again. Same with AdWords. I know those who believe if you spend AdWords money on your site, it would help you rank too. I have to disagree, as then the big companies, could buy their way to the top for all organic searches. I could be wrong, but I don't have any indication otherwise that would be part of the algorithm.
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lukemeister 13 years ago

This reminds me of something odd I noticed on the Yahoo SEM network with PPC about 1-2 years ago. I had a site that had NO backlinks, no organic traffic or anything. Basically a zero traffic site. I advertised it on Yahoo's PPC network, and I noticed in my site traffic analytics that I was nearly getting equal amount of organic search traffic from Yahoo as I was getting PPC traffic. When I stopped the campaign, the organic traffic stopped too. It was weird. But it was like I was getting double my money's worth for the PPC campaign.
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ToyBox 13 years ago

congratulations.

I think it is just superstition with Adsense helping your rankings though. Only thing I can possibly see would be maybe some extra text being spidered from the ads if they even pick that up.
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RR111 13 years ago

First clear your browse cookies.. then search, you will get another result
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