Pages With Too Many Ads Above The Fold Now Penalized By Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Pages With Too Many Ads Above The Fold Now Penalized By Google

#11

Post by epochwolf » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 8:54 PM UTC

staunch wrote: post #7

joejohnson wrote: post #2

Yep, only Google's search results page gets to be top-heavy with ads.

Completely true. http://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=breast+r... There are 11 paid links and 10 organic. At least 75% of the above-the-fold content is ads.

I don't see any ads actually.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/361483/archive/google_search.png

Re: Pages With Too Many Ads Above The Fold Now Penalized By Google

#12

Post by jonknee » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 8:54 PM UTC

joejohnson wrote: post #2

Yep, only Google's search results page gets to be top-heavy with ads.

They're also blocked by robots.txt, so feel free to load up on advertising on your pages you don't want indexed.

Re: Pages With Too Many Ads Above The Fold Now Penalized By Google

#13

Post by AdamTReineke » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 8:55 PM UTC

robk wrote: post #6

This seems rather contradictory with the general AdSense historic guidance to run up to 3 ad units and place them generally to the top and left side of the page (per various pieces of heatmap research often cited). Seems like this could be pretty easily gamed too depending on how much of a CSS-wizard you are, as I suppose the algorithms are somewhat limited in analyzing CSS vs plain HTML layout or Javascript.

There was an article a while back about how Googlebot is likely a version of Chrome that fully renders a page to process it. [1] You're right, without a full browser engine, you could pull a whole host of tricks to make the page appear clean but then put in ads later. Since Googlebot is probably a full featured browser, it becomes a lot harder to trick.

[1] http://ipullrank.com/googlebot-is-chrome/

Re: Pages With Too Many Ads Above The Fold Now Penalized By Google

#14

Post by chc » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 8:58 PM UTC

joejohnson wrote: post #2

Yep, only Google's search results page gets to be top-heavy with ads.

Google is penalizing sites that violate their standards of top-heaviness. I don't think it's fair to call them hypocrites because they don't meet your standards.

Re: Pages With Too Many Ads Above The Fold Now Penalized By Google

#15

Post by chc » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 9:00 PM UTC

epochwolf wrote: post #11

staunch wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely true. http://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=breast+r... There are 11 paid links and 10 organic. At least 75% of the above-the-fold content is ads.

I don't see any ads actually. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/361483/archive/google_search.png

No shock there — you're running AdBlock.

Re: Pages With Too Many Ads Above The Fold Now Penalized By Google

#16

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 9:03 PM UTC

funkah wrote: post #10

joejohnson wrote: post #2

Yep, only Google's search results page gets to be top-heavy with ads.

Yeah, this is awfully rich considering where G's money comes from.

[deleted]

Re: Pages With Too Many Ads Above The Fold Now Penalized By Google

#17

Post by blutonium » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 9:04 PM UTC

epochwolf wrote: post #11

staunch wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely true. http://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=breast+r... There are 11 paid links and 10 organic. At least 75% of the above-the-fold content is ads.

I don't see any ads actually. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/361483/archive/google_search.png

This is how it looks without AdBlock.

http://imgur.com/3pOyK

Re: Pages With Too Many Ads Above The Fold Now Penalized By Google

#18

Post by jrockway » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 9:08 PM UTC

joejohnson wrote: post #2

Yep, only Google's search results page gets to be top-heavy with ads.

Google search has ads on the top, but it isn't top-heavy.

Re: Pages With Too Many Ads Above The Fold Now Penalized By Google

#19

Post by funkah » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 9:09 PM UTC

epochwolf wrote: post #11

staunch wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely true. http://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=breast+r... There are 11 paid links and 10 organic. At least 75% of the above-the-fold content is ads.

I don't see any ads actually. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/361483/archive/google_search.png

You use Adblock, yes? That's kinda the whole point.

Re: Pages With Too Many Ads Above The Fold Now Penalized By Google

#20

Post by jrockway » Fri, Jan 20, 2012, 9:09 PM UTC

funkah wrote: post #10

joejohnson wrote: post #2

Yep, only Google's search results page gets to be top-heavy with ads.

Yeah, this is awfully rich considering where G's money comes from.

Google's money comes from providing things to click that are relevant. Sometimes those are ads, but most times those are search results. If you click a search result and see nothing but ads, you're less inclined to continue to use Google. A balance has to be made between advertising and non-advertising, and all ads is not the right balance.