Many people believe that if you use Google services, such as Google Analytics or Google AdSense, that Google tends to favour those websites and that you’ll rank higher. The idea being that Google will trust your website more as it haves some cool hard facts on whats going on behind the scenes.
Is this true? Apparently not.
Does this surprise me? Nope.
Since the sledgehammer that was the Google Panda update, we’ve been told time and time again that good content and user experience is the key to good rankings, and AdSense is certainly does not shout good user experience to me.
I mean, what possible positive does a user get from crappy looking ads and equally shit graphics clogging up their view of the content?
They get in the way, they are often either animated to distract you from the content or worse mistaken for useful navigation links. All in all, they suck big time.
Evidence suggests that for onsite SEO, AdSense is a negative ranking factor.
Google keep a close eye on sites with AdSense, and SEOMoz have even found that web pages that are filled with AdSense Adverts tend to not rank as well as pages with fewer AdSense slots.
With a correlation with the amount of space on your website that is taken up by AdSense, it’s clear that Google, pervayor of all things white-hat and ethical on the web, has created a product that is used by millions of websites that it feels detracts from the user experience. Now I’m not Alan Sugar but does that sound a bit odd to you?
Though a strange idea, it completely makes sense. Crappy websites tend to run crappy AdSense ads, and Google has recognised it. But what sort of business punishes it’s users for using its product?
Advertising on social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, is becoming more and more popular with advertising revenue at Facebook expected to pass the £1bn mark in 2011 for the first time. Just as Google threatened Facebook with Google +, Facebook is fighting back with PPC.
Those of you who recall the marketing hype around the concept of banner advertising will remember that over a period of time CTR’s dropped, and dropped, and dropped, and dropped…
This is where my main question lies. In the long-term web users will become accustomed to, and immune to, the power of AdWords, just as we did with banners. Let’s face it, it happened with print, it’s happening with TV and it will eventually happen to AdWords. It’s an inevitability unless the presentation, delivery and formats available for Adwords change to keep up with the progress of time, technology and trends. But how can Google ensure a long term growth strategy for it’s PPC product when it’s penalising those it aims to serve?
I’d love to hear your views. Do you think Google are harming their bottom line by punishing the SEO of AdSense users?
.png)
