Ask Semalt Expert: How Does Google Handle A Site With Too Many Ads?



Google is one name we are all familiar with. As a website owner, Google basically sets the guidelines of how you build and run a website. Here, we will be discussing one very important factor we need to consider as website managers. That is how Google deals with websites with too many ads. 

Content promotion is at the forefront of any website marketing strategy. Because of this, there are more than enough ads waiting to be displayed, so what will happen if you let too many ads feature on your site? 

There are a number of factors that affect how google behaves or interacts with sites that have too many ads. John Muller from Google points us in the right direction as to how sites with a lot of ads are handled when it comes to ranking on SERP. 

This issue was addressed in Google Search Central Live Stream on December 11, and John Muller shared some light as he explained that there are several factors that determine how sites with many ads are dealt with while getting indexed for search results. He explains that websites can be removed from SERP when they meet extremely rare conditions, but this hardly ever happens. 

Muller explains further by explaining why Google chooses to keep some sites in SERP even if it is obviously violating webmaster guidelines. Here is what he had to say.

What happens to sites with too many ads according to Muller

In order to stay neutral and not site any bad examples, Muller was unable to speak to the handling of any specific site and made no examples. Instead, he spoke more broadly on how google handles sites with below-average user experience. 

He mentions certain algorithm updates which evaluates how sites with poor user experience are ranked:
  • Page layout algorithm: this algorithm was launched in 2012, and it impacts sites with too many ads above the fold. 
  • Page speed algorithm: this impacts sites that load slowly as a result of too many ads. It was launched in 2018. 
  • Core web vitals: this algorithm specifically targets websites that have less than optimal user experience. This will be launched in May 2021. 
Muller further explains that it is hard to explain without using examples, but several things are considered with regards to the impact of ads on user experience. A couple of years back, there was an update where the above fold content became something that was weighed a bit more seriously. 

So that's something where if there are too many ad contents above, the user experience is possibly affected. There are also several other updates that have been released in the past that consider the speed of a website as a significant ranking factor. 

The core web Vitals is set to launch in May, which also helps in regards to ranking in SERP. 

Can pages with poor user experience still rank?

At this point, it should be clear that the primary disadvantage of having too many ads on a page is that it affects the UX. Muller explains that pages with a bad user experience can rank when they provide extremely relevant information for particular queries. 

He says that it is important we keep in mind that a lot of factors are used to determine to rank in the search result as it attempts to understand what website is the most relevant for every search query. If a page is very relevant in some regards, it might still be featured in the SERP result, even if it has a bad user experience. Sometimes, these websites may be shown highly. 

This helps us establish the fact that Google will still rank a site in search results simply because that is what users are looking for. It is a matter of priorities. If search engine users find the website relevant despite the bad UX, then google has no other choice but to rank it. 

So, just because a page has too many ads doesn't mean the website will be automatically blacklisted or moved to the last page of SERP. As long as users get what they want, Google is willing to turn a blind eye. 

Google's reaction to websites with too many ads

To be safe, you should keep the number of ads on your website at an average. However, if you have too many, it is no real reason why you should panic. That is because Google rarely removes websites for having poor user experience. 

Best believe that no matter how awful your site's UX is, google will not remove your website from its index log. If that should happen, it is most likely a combination of factors and not UX alone. As long as your site offers something, you should feel pretty safe. Manual removes by Google are usually performed on sites that are irrelevant to Google's users or websites that do not offer anything special. 

Google's Muller explains 

Muller explains that it is extremely rare for Google to go in manually and completely shut down a website from its search, ensuring that it can never appear for any search query. Most times, such extreme punishments are given in specific cases where the entire website is Irrelevant. Imagine a website that scraps content from the rest of the web with nothing unique about the website or its value. In such situations, the webspam team is called in to vet the website and judge if it is truly a spam site without anything of value. 

If such a website is deemed "guilty," then they are removed from Google's index. For websites with bad UX, google can still show it, and in some cases, other factors can come in to influence its ranking on SERP. 

Muller adds his personal opinion on this topic. He thinks it is important that websites with bad UX should be kept in search results. He explains his opinion by describing instances where websites are excruciatingly difficult to navigate or get a hand of simply because the owner of such websites doesn't know better. 

Often times, some of these difficult to use websites are owned by legitimate businesses, which explains why Google isn't too quick to use its ban hammer. These poor UX websites are important because they can teach people more about what they need to do on their website. Since we do not know all the details of what is important, we have an opportunity to learn from these bad websites. We can also use them in evaluations of how bad our websites are. Are they manageable or extremely bad? Can they be sometimes used, or do we need to redo everything? 

In the end, they end up doing lots of weird things, and these websites are suboptimal. As experts, it allows us to say things like "doing this isn't the best approach, this is clearly a no no against the webmasters guidelines."

These companies with bad UX are likely not to notice that they have too many ads, and they might be a legitimate business. In cases like that, we agree that such websites should continue to show on SERP as it isn't completely irrelevant, and they may have their website that way because they do not know any better. 

Having too many ads on your website has several other disadvantages

For starters, it can influence the load speed of your website.
Ads are usually the first things to load on a website as they require very little bandwidth. However, they tend to cover up relevant content while the page loads. So if a user has to wait a couple more seconds for the ad to give way, they are likely to leave the site. 

Having too many ads makes your website look like spam.
Imagine if you are looking for a store to buy products. On the first website, there are no ads, straight to business. The second, however, has several ads that aren't related to your search query. Which are you likely to buy from? Of course, the first because it looks more professional. Spammers are fond of stockpiling ads on their websites simply because they want to make as much money as possible. This has made everyone assume that once a webpage more than three ads on a page, there is something fishy. 

Conclusion

Having too many ads on your site is simply bad because it adds more pressure to your readers. Many times, you've had to close a website because with every click comes a new pop up. Now except there is no better alternative, you wouldn't hesitate to go back to SERP. 

That is exactly how your customers will behave when you have too many ads on your website. It makes using a website unbearably. Now Google may not punish you, but best believe your customers will. Remember, it is important you impress your audience so that they come back or stick around. No one wants their reading or shopping experience interrupted.

Give Semalt a call and watch us take your website to its glory days.