Pages With Too Many Top Ads To Get Penalized?

Google has done it again. It is not done with slapping sites with Panda. It will now go after sites that have too many ads above the fold. Let’s face it. We are all tired of spam-looking websites with too many ads before you get to see any decent content. Google plans to change that:

we’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

But wait. Don’t above the fold ads perform well? Wouldn’t this be a killer for publishers who rely on ads to stay afloat. Google claims it won’t be going after sites with a normal number of ads in that area.

We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content. This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree

Google encourages webmasters to use tools such as Browser Size to figure out whether they could be in trouble. You should also circle today’s date and check your Analytics results to see whether there has been a major drop in your rankings. Making changes to your site layout won’t make an immediate difference. But Google takes note of it as its crawlers go through your content again.

Google is not going to stop making changes to its algorithm. It is expected to introduce 500+ improvements to its system. This is just one of those. So brace yourselves.