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Matt Cutts: Google may penalize ad heavy pages

by ChrisGreen
27 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Coming soon to a page near you...Google penalty. Google may penalize ad heavy web pages as part of its continuing Panda update. If you have web pages where it is difficult for visitors to find "main content," Google will penalize your page by lowering the page's ranking position. Good luck!
#ad heavy pages #cutts #google #heavy #matt #pages #penalize
  • Profile picture of the author ChrisGreen
    Google May Penalize Ad Heavy Pages
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  • Profile picture of the author RobKonrad
    From a customer's point of view, not the worst thingt to do....

    I never really liked those ad cemeteries...

    Cheers,
    Rob Konrad
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  • Profile picture of the author Robbie B
    I think it's more going to be about the positioning of the ads. I have to agree that it should improve the quality. If ads are dominating the top of a page then it's probably set up to get revenue and not benefit the reader. With the exception of mine of course.

    In all serious though, some of them aren't pleasant to look at. AdSense across the top, infolinks popping up on the page, Kontera ads, Chitika and then some random banner ads thrown in just for the sake of it. When it comes to sites like that, then I have to agree that they should be dropped, as they are ugly and hard to read.
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  • Profile picture of the author bbonus
    makes sense, right? sucks for MFA site owners like myself because as we know...removing ads and positioning them "out of the way" leads to lower clicks and ultimately earnings...
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  • Profile picture of the author SteveDolan
    It's not necessarily a bad thing. There are a LOT of really crappy 'ad' sites out there. I for one will not be sorry to see their page rank drop - I've been steadily moving to the 'authority' type site focusing on content and visitor value. Of course I still have ads, but not at the cost of visitor value. This can only help my rankings and eventually get me more traffic - which will make up for the drop in clicks/conversions. All IMHO of course :0
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    Automated Wordpress maintenance
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  • Profile picture of the author FraserC
    They already made this warning back with the original Panda update. After that announcement, I pulled off all my Amazon ads, and stuck only with Adsense. My overall revenue actually improved. :-) Amazon is really poor performing for me (except around Christmas).
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    • Profile picture of the author cooler1
      Are Google refering to affiliate links also when they say "ads"? For example if a page has a lot of in-text affiliate links which aren't banners, would that be classed as ad heavy.
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      • Profile picture of the author dudelive
        I never changed my ad count and I have done nothing but gone up.

        Stop reading everything that comes out about Google.

        Yes it may be important but it just throws you off track.

        Stay focused and you can't lose.

        Just a thought.
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        This WSO Throws Money at You! Panda and Penguin Safe! Themes Included!

        Tony's Online Marketing Handbook. 11 Simple Steps to Page One!
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      • Profile picture of the author creature
        Probably depends on how many affiliate contextual links you have compared to links to other sites and other pages on your own site.

        If you only 200 words of content loaded with 20 affiliate links, I am betting you would get hit. If you had 900 words of content with 5 affiliate links and 5 outbound links I'd guess Google would see it differently.

        That' what I've gleaned from a number of Matt Cutts comments and blogs.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tiptopcat
    I keep getting emails for G Adsense telling me that I can still add more ad blocks to my website. LOL. Maybe this will now stop.....
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    • Profile picture of the author webovative
      Originally Posted by Tiptopcat View Post

      I keep getting emails for G Adsense telling me that I can still add more ad blocks to my website. LOL. Maybe this will now stop.....
      me too, that's the first thing that occurred to me, I get emails every week suggesting I add more adsense blocks to my sites
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  • Profile picture of the author FraserC
    Yeah, I've got a rep at Adsense who's pushing me to go very agressive. I'm really hoping the two halves of the company are talking to each other.
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    • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
      Let me know when Google bans itself.

      .
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      • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
        Banned
        Originally Posted by kindsvater View Post

        Let me know when Google bans itself.

        .
        lol ... well, they've already reduced their pagerank, so a good slap from themselves is way overdue. Today their pagerank is/was 9.
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  • Profile picture of the author tpw
    I have heard rumor about Google implementing an Original Content Penalty too!!

    See this thread for details: http://www.warriorforum.com/off-topi...e-penalty.html
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    Bill Platt, Oklahoma USA, PlattPublishing.com
    Publish Coloring Books for Profit (WSOTD 7-30-2015)
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  • Profile picture of the author JerrickYeoh
    Usually Google Panda will rank lower for those page who had more than 2 ads in one landing page.
    May what you can do is rank your other landing page which do not have much ads .
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    • Profile picture of the author Global Warrior
      For a company that frequently only has 3 non paying content providers above the fold, i think its a bit rich, but hey, DO NO EVIL

      GW
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by ChrisGreen View Post

    Coming soon to a page near you...Google penalty. Google may penalize ad heavy web pages as part of its continuing Panda update. If you have web pages where it is difficult for visitors to find "main content," Google will penalize your page by lowering the page's ranking position. Good luck!
    Tell that to Adsense, they keep sending me emails that I'm not including the max number of allowed Adsense Ads on my pages.

    Seriously, I get at least 1 email from Adsense per week telling me this.

    I should tell them, it looks like crap on my page, I'll stick with my 2 Ads per page.
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  • Profile picture of the author boxoun
    This from a company who's now adding ads under the search results. I received those messages too telling me to add more ads lol.
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  • Profile picture of the author BillieKAlbert
    This is a great move of Google. I saw lots of website where pages have 2-3 lines content (copied from any news source - title and 2 line of summary) and they place ads every where.
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  • Profile picture of the author TheRealFade
    i say good, adsense is a scam anyway.
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  • Profile picture of the author TheRealFade
    seriously though, if thats your plan to make money on the internet, just quit now.
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  • Profile picture of the author 36burrows
    This is complete BS as far as I'm concerned. A site that's currently ranked #1 for one of my own sites main keywords has nothing but affiliate banners all over the page from top to bottom and barely any content.

    I'm tired of hearing this crap.
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    PPC Management Services
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  • Profile picture of the author JeanneLynn
    I certainly wouldn't miss sites like that. I hate it when I end up visiting a site that's loaded with ads.
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  • Profile picture of the author 1stpage
    I wonder if they will consider Adsense exempt from this maneuver?

    The original premise of Adsense (or so they said) was that they ads were contextually relevent and added value to the user. I wouldn't imagine that they would consider their own ad offering to be anything less than "wonderful".
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      People take stuff out of context. It just gives google
      one more reason to ditch trashy sites. Has nothing to
      do with ad heavy, or even above the fold. It's probably
      way down on the list, just to verify a trashy site.

      Really. latimes.com, nytimes.com, yahoo, etc. every BIG site
      has shinola above the fold. Nothing. Links are not content.

      What's amazon? A site with no ads? Ebay? Craigslist?
      Get a grip people.

      Searchengineland has their own agenda. Not that it's
      bad, just saying. They want people to link to them,
      read them, and consider them gods.

      What's funny, is that searchengineland.com has
      very, very little above the fold. I even discount the
      revolving picture links. That's not content. It's
      links. So, obviously they're not worried.

      If you have a junk site, you should be in trouble
      anyway.

      It's just another way of devaluing junk sites that may slip
      through. NOT penalizing authoritative sites who don't give
      a rip about a plethora of ads.

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

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