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A WebmasterWorld thread has several Google AdSense publishers reporting they received a message from Google to place ads at the top left of their content in order to increase ad exposure, clicks and obviously earnings.
I confirmed Google sent out this message to publishers, here is a copy of the message I received myself from Google AdSense on Wednesday:
Now, if you listen to this advice, which says, "Highlighted above is an area on the page where we think a new unit would have the greatest return," it can and should lead to a Google penalty.
Remember in January, Google announced a new page layout penalty that specifically goes after pages with ads that distract from content? Yea, here is what Google said:
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.
I know they are separate departments, with no ties. But in no way should one Google department be telling you something that can hurt your search rankings.
This obviously also has repercussions on the Panda side of things as well.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Alex Leigh
08/17/2012 11:37 am
That's exactly what they want! If they can lure sites into penalties then those sites will turn to PPC. If you ask me, both departments talk to each other very frequently. It's all about the money.....
Google is rigged
08/17/2012 03:44 pm
Google wants sites to advertise now so the PPC increases. Panda and Penguin only added to Google's bottom line. Their "engineers are working hard" to penalize even more sites
Inbound Marketing Expert
08/18/2012 11:16 am
Your words are acceptable 100%. Google Just want to double, Triple their revenue
bobbob12345
08/18/2012 02:06 pm
this is just good tips to tank your site in google. I know, we have a great user experience with google services ;-)
Meding44
08/18/2012 03:53 pm
Yes in fact this is the ridiculous results from dominant position !! Do not listen to the song of sirens ..
Josef Holm
08/18/2012 05:37 pm
That's pretty ridiculous... Is Google growing too big to keep an oversight of all their departments and what they do?
Peter Watson
08/19/2012 09:10 am
I went to a Google Adsense conference at Google head office Sydney a couple of months ago now and I was lucky enough to have a 'googler' go through my site with me. He assured me that placing adsense (as he advised me to do) above the fold would be totally acceptable! I did not take his advice as I felt I knew more about current SEO trends than he did.........(shaking my head). Lucky I didn't!
Yin
08/21/2012 01:57 am
I too received a message from them on one of my higher performing blog. Upon heeding their advise and putting ads above the fold, my earnings more than doubled with traffic remaining constant. If we still stuck to 3 ads per page and content can still be found easily...with earnings increased, why not?
Doug
08/22/2012 04:27 pm
Whah?
Webstats Art
08/28/2012 04:31 pm
A friend of mine ran adsense for almost ten years and made google a ton of cash (over 120,000 views a month) Just before he got penalized he was sent a message from the adsense team telling him to include more ads on his websites. After he did this, he got banned from adsense for invalid clicks with no way to appeal properly because the message was sent by an unmerciful bot. If you have an adsense account, don't take Adsense advice because you might end up losing it. BTW - that friend of mine will never ever use adsense again, even if they beg him. He is waiting for something greater, just like millions of others.