SEOs don't talk about advertising much, perhaps because it's the conceptual opposite of “great content.” The truth is, advertising is the gasoline that runs much of the web. Without ad revenue, great sites we love like Search Engine Land, Smashing Magazine, and even Wired might cease to exist.
Ads are great, but as SEOs we need to present them as the commercials that they are, not the main show.
Optimizing for CTR the Old Way
Not long ago, it was common to see sites like this dominating the SERPs.
(Thanks to Michael Gray for the lead)
When Panda struck, sites like this got hit hard, time and time again. Even websites with superior content were penalized if they contained over-aggressive ads above the fold. I don't know if the site above was penalized by Panda, but I'm guessing their traffic is not as healthy as it could be, and a simple layout change would help significantly.
1. Ads as a Ranking Factor
The 2011 Ranking Factors showed a slight negative correlation between rankings and the amount of Adsense on a page.
Several Panda updates have rolled out since this data was collected, and I would expect the relationship today to be even more negative.
Although Adsense isn't the only game on the market, it's the one ad network SEOs get the most information from. Matt Cutts has said that his team sends one way messages to the Adsense team in order to help webmasters comply with Google quality guidelines.
In April, after Panda hit, Adsense changed how they advocate best practices for ad placement. Gone (or at least tucked away) were the old heat maps.
2. Panda Friendly Layouts
The new layouts specifically advocate for ads that do not push content below the fold.
These are the types of layouts that should be safe no matter what kind of ads you run. You can see earlier versions in their one-click optimizer, but these older layouts don't go very far in placing content first. Use at your own risk.
3. Balance Your Template Footprint
Ads are a component your template footprint. A template footprint is any non-unique content that appears on every page, as opposed to content that makes the page unique.
It's best to keep your ratio of unique content to footprint as high as possible. If you can't reduce your template footprint, at least place your content in the highest, most prominent place possible in order to stay out of the penalty zone.
4. Future Proof Your Ads
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The new Adsense recommendations are great for this round of Panda, but what about next year? In my opinion, they represent the minimum of what you should do to avoid a penalty.
The New York Times does a good job of balancing ads against content. Their strategy neither ignores users nor puts them at risk for near-future algorithm changes.
Aggressive ads tend to alienate users, which can affect your bounce rate, time on site, pageviews and other user engagement metrics. All of these can have undesirable long term consequences. For publishers dedicated to long term profits, there is a better approach.
5. Beyond CTR – Smart Ways to Increase Ad Revenue
It's true that higher click-through rates give webmasters incentive to place ads above content. But CTR isn't the only way to increase earnings. You can optimize several other factors to your long term advantage. If you are an Adsense publisher, you are familiar with these concepts.
1. Coverage
2. Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
3. Cost Per Impression (CPI or CPM)
4. Impressions
All of these can be optimized for higher earnings. Number 4, impressions, is the most actionable from an SEO point of view. If you're producing great content and promoting it the right way, then your pageviews will soar. Here in the States, the SuperBowl will always make more in ad revenue than reruns of Murder, She Wrote.
If you sell ads, be the SuperBowl of content publishers. Produce the best content you can, and you can sell your premium ad space for top dollar.
Thank you, Cyrus.
A couple things that can be done to increase revenue is experimentation with the use of programming. You can have .php units that rotate the color/format of your ads or server-side includes that are rewritten hourly with perl to make similar changes. If each different ad color/format is assigned a separate Adsense channel you can quickly learn which color/format is the best earner.
We have found that some formats can earn several times more income than others.
The most important thing that you can test is the position of ads on your page. This can also be done with the use of programs that rotate page formats or rewrite server-side includes with ads in different positions.
We have found that changing the position of ads on a page can make huge differences in income.
The position of ads on your page can also be linked to visitor engagement. If you tie your ad position data with visitor time-on-page, scroll data or click data - you can find out if your ads might be causing people to "bounce off" of your pages.
I like putting ads below the main content, above a comments box. Anyone agree with this?
I agree...but a good design can also put ads above the fold (which improves conversion) as long as the ads vs content is clear to the vistor.
I like placing ads at the end of the content as well. If you believe in your content, you should believe that the reader will make it that far. If you don't believe in your content, there's a good chance you take your chances and plaster ads at the very top, knowing your quality leaves much to be desired.
Ads hidden below the fold will have a lower conversion rate but stay out of the way! lol
Absolutely ... particulary considering what Cutts is now saying about ad placement and content above the fold. I Have always been a firm believe in INFORMATION FIRST ... ads SECOND.
This might be the first 100% Adsense SEO post I've ever come across (hint hint: Cyrus, you're doing it right!)
I run a few sites that run adsense, but I've never thought about it from an SEO perspective. Another great, actionable post from you Cyrus! Thanks a bunch!
Advertising, man. It's many people's gut reaction when they think of "making money on the web" but, as you've demonstrated, it can do serious damage to traffic potential with Panda updates and such. So, by trying to make money by over-advertising their traffic, they lose traffic to a Panda-paw!
Sad thing, that. Thanks for the post!
Great post! As you stated, ads are important because advertising is paying the internet. The same with ad blocks on radio & television.
Advertising is Google's bread and butter.
What do you think of sites using affiliate networks as a revenue income? And what about sites that get sponsored by big brands? Are they in future risk to get hit?
From what I've seen, affiliate advertising seems to be penalised more than Google Adsense ads. But excessive *anything* is going to be penalised.
Great Post Cyrus. I really like the part about future proofing your ads. Encouraging people not to do the bare minimum but to strive to find the balance between user experience and advertising.
This is a great post, I hate ads that get too intrusive to the content and if it is too much I leave. Aggressive ads, to me, removes the balance of trust in the content I am reading.
I know Panda must have been a puch to the gut for many sites, but I think it is a step in the right direction for getting people what they really want, great content with minimal effort.
The big issue may be that Googlebot looks at the data differently than the end user. For example, let's say you have a group of ads that load first, but are unobtrusive and off to the side on your sidebar. Then your content loads second, but appears all the way at the very top, center of the page. Do you suffer because of the "algorithm?"
That aside, you can control bounce rate and user interaction with fewer ads, and/or better placements. So that's a takeaway. I just wonder how smart the robots are at deciphering which ads truly are obtrusive and over the top.
There has been a general belief in the past that Google understands things based on the order of the code (such as experiments about the first link counting for anchor text). This might suggest that you could put your ads in divs at the bottom of the code and use CSS to put those divs at the top of your page.
On the other hand, Google has been giving off signs that they are getting very advanced at interperting page layouts. They recently announced they can execute AJAX and Javascript for indexing, which is much more complicated than analyzing some CSS to see what's at the top of the page. In fact sometimes I wonder if the whole reason they developed the Chrome browser in the first place was to improve their search results by preparing an engine to analyze webpages with the same understanding that users have...
Great post Cyrus!
Undoubtedly, your advice will stop us and think about when we face the problem of ads placement. And, it's true, finally ads are money, and we all want to earn a lot of money, but we have to be careful with the choice of ads and their best placement.
Thank you.
Woohoo!
You're back...and not a moment too soon!
This simple explanation will prove really handy for those "yes, but..." conversations with ad happy clients in the future.
So good to see you back on the blog Cyrus - you have definitely been missed :)
Sha
While Google might be looking at "pixel space" as you propose, our company, Ezoic, tests ad placements on many websites as our primary business and we've learnt a few things about this subject.
The first is that any measurements have to do with the entire site -- it's not measured on a per page basis. So, you can be a little more ad heavy on your high traffic pages and less on your less used ones, or better yet, alter them through the user session.
The second is that they are weighting user experience metrics such as time on site, pageviews / visit and bounce rate much higher than ad density. So, you need to measure the effect that placements have on those metrics more than really worrying about pixels.
Lastly, it's important to realize that they are only punishing ads that go over the top. As with so many things, anything reasonable is fine -- just don't overdo it.
It seems like the article is mostly written on gut feeling rather than specific data :S
Hi Cyrus,
Need your help regarding SEO
Website: www.chicagoexpresslimo.com
Blog: chicagoexpresslimo.blogspot.com
i am confused what to do for SEO, i heard about link building and back link, would it work after Panda algorithm or not. also wanted to know what is the best way for SEO.
waiting for your reply.
Link building and back linking is most likely ok but if you plan on linking then make sure you are putting links on your site for sites that have similar and related content. Also only link back to high quality sites that rank high on Google otherwise if you are just linking to any other site for more hits then Google will penalize your site and it'll be listed lower in results. Also if you plan on doing this then keep links on their own little page and if possible make it so that page will not be indexed on search engines and hidden. Might be best to put a link at the bottom of your site for related content links and no-index it in your robots.txt file. This way Google will see incoming links from high quality sites but none going out to those sites (unless they have somehow got around this) which in return will make your site look just a little more popular. Correct me if I'm wrong.
It's all new PANDA's business. "Old designed" sites are no longer in the top.
I loathe websites plastered with ads all over. They just do not appeal. Rather, you need ads that are given the space they deserve and do not override into the main screen shot. I would remit all the blame for this on those ambitious SEO professionals dying to bring their clients revenue and show them just why they made the right choice by hiring them. This is a cheap practice I least endorse.
I've got my above the fold area very light on advertising since Panda. But reading #4 about the "template" makes me wonder if I should go further and reduce the height of my header area and maybe even remove one of my two sidebars, so as to increase the content-to-template ratio above the fold. Make sense?
Adding ads under posts and sidebar increase is affect readers mindset? If any good place for adsence somebody suggest best placement.
What about Left floated large rectangle instead of right,
728*15 ad link unit below navigation and large rectangle in below post title left aligned with content,
30% rule of adwors, pagelayout
Hey Cyrus - This is all great stuff. Your readers might also want to know about split testing their adsense with a plugin like AmpedSense. It'll really help you maximize your CTR, RPM, etc as you mentioned in #5. Thank you!
The Ads are losing space and each day are weakest fron to user generated content. The ads I think are for special branding and highlights actions
This may be an old post but its still relevant today.
I would add though that in-content layouts with both left-aligned and right aligned large rectangles seem to be still okay with Google as we can see in this google post... https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/187653?hl=en&ref_topic=29880
The diagrams in this post (also from google) could lead us to believe otherwise if they were not also recommending the left aligned layouts elsewhere.
I didn't even know Google had put out a "recommended AdSense placement page". A few of my websites got wiped out last year and I had no idea why. Not until you mentioned placing too many ads above the fold. I'll give Google's recommended ad positions. Thanks for this!
Interesting. I just checked NY Times site and it looks like they have removed that 728x90 banner as well, which is not a surprise.
Great tips, Cyurs.
I think it's important to note that the most search engine friendly Adsense implementation is typically the most user-friendly. I guess (if you value both your profits and your users) the goal is to find a balance between user/search engine friendly ad placement and CTR friendly ad placement.
very interesting perspective, one i have not come across before. i have close to 20 niche sites now that make most of their money from adsense. in reviewing the results, it does not appear that panda has affected them on a consistent basis. while some sites are doing just as good with ads above the fold, others are penalized for the same ad layout. i will continue to tweak and monitor
It's ironic that google serps are morphing into the same layout that the panda updates are penalizing (top heavy ad placement). With all the changes to local etc you can hardly find anything above the fold that doesn’t generate revenue for google are provide momentum to the g+ movement.
I'm new to MFA sites and this post has opened my eyes on new Google's Panda. Will keep it in mind now. I've read somwhere that as many adsense blocks on one page you have as little price of click on this page is. So it's better to have few blocks and avoid Panda + get higher price for clicks.
Simply Superb!
Very nice explanation Mr. Cyrus. As you are talking about Ads placement in better way to increse CTR. But I have questions about PANDA's friendly layout and not friendly layouts. I comeacross many sites in a day. As a seo, when I have see some directories, Social bookmarking & article sites have layouts that includes only ads between the content.
i.e
QUE:
Is this Panda layouts?( as I have explain above)
If not then Google then "Can Google stop adsense ads on such sites?"
Request You to Explain me about Panda Layout. Thanks in advance.
When in doubt, error on the side of user experience.
Thanks Cyrus, great post!
I have a question: my company's site: lightinthebox.com, we use DFP for all banners on site ( easy to track the CTR). Banners all link to our categories and products . Will this get hit by Google?
Interresting scenario. Although I want to avoid direct advice in the comments (we prefer Q&A), I think there are lessons here we can all benefit from.
In your case, 3rd party ads are actually 1st party ads that point to your own site!
What is important is this: by hosting your content with a 3rd party ad network, you forfiet the opportunity to host your own images, control your alt text, and manage your link juice. Not something I would want to give up.
uhm! I found over 600 links on the main page...Isn't this a lesson of to many links on one page...I thought i read that on this site recently...i could be wrong...any truth to that?
"...do not push content below the fold."
What if you use that same structure and have an ad "push content down" BUT it happens below the fold? Will that still be penalized?
Great article by the way! Thanks for the post!
Cyrus,
Good stuff. I have NEVER clicked on an Adsense ad, although I have some sites with Adsense. The "shove them down your throat" mentality of most sites just doesn't make sense.
I like your tips!
I'm still confused as to whether Google actually find AdSense as spam? I think of it as this, surely they can't penalise you for promoting THEIR product? Can anybody elaborate on their views of this? Thanks, Ryan
Good point.
Are the Panda people working with the Adwords/Adsense people or not?
They claim to work separately.
I am an italian man. I am an engineer in Italy and I deal me of planning and structural calculation and of housebuilding. My site internet is: https://www.calcolostrutture.net .
I wanted to make my compliments for the good quality of the forum.
I wanted to ask to the forum if there is a way of reactivating ad sense if eliminated... can I activate ad sense on a different site in comparison to that in which I/you/they have been eliminated of google for activity of not valid click? Or ad sense it realizes only putting the same data of the beneficiary and will it disarm me the same the account?
Thanks
Hi Cyrus
I have read you article on seomoz, i have b2b portals, i am working on the promotion part, but from april the website(trademart.in) traffic is going down and down. can you help me to recover it. May my website in Panda spam.
Help me any one.
Thanks very much for the insight. Be interested to hear your thoughts on the effects of the 7 Nov page rank update
Thanks for the tips Cyrus.
May I add that another slapping effect of the Panda update (in my opinion) is the number of ad scripts on top of your HTML code. This not only includes adsense, but other javascript based ad platforms. This makes the crawler unable to read your text content, which is a big factor in ranking search results.