Any evidence that too many ads (under the fold) are a ranking factor

Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi

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Any evidence that too many ads (under the fold) are a ranking factor

Zivush

5:43 am on Apr 18, 2012 (gmt 0)

It is announced by Google in several occasion that Content/Ads position is becoming a ranking factor.
What's the rule of thumb actually?
It is known that during January "above the fold" ads on pages started playing a negative factor - actually an algorithm upgrade has been rolled out.
However, what about ads under the fold? How many are too many?
There are some good ad networks offering:
A. In-text ads
B. 125x125 ads
C. Premium CPM ads
etc etc etc. Did some of those above types of networks lost some of their market lately?

In addition, I have received a suggestion from Adsense rep to add the forth ad block under the fold if I want to. It was at the annual Adsense conference in my country on November 2011.
I haven't added this block and even reduced one.

So, I am a bit confused. Any inputs are welcome.

goodroi

12:15 pm on Apr 18, 2012 (gmt 0)

From my perspective having too many ads (above and/or below) indirectly hurts your site much more than Google's recent experimentation with adding this directly to the algo.

Having too many ads can drive away users. This lowers the usage quality signals that Google is looking for. Also having an extreme amount of ads tends to scare away potential link partners, so your backlinks can suffer. Plus having too many ads can actually cost you sales in the long term. Too many ads can hurt usability and that will drive down repeat users and fewer repeat users means fewer repeat sales.

enigma1

10:23 pm on Apr 18, 2012 (gmt 0)

Yes the number of ads is more than anything else.

It is known that during January "above the fold" ads on pages started playing a negative factor

Nope, you can't define what's "above the fold" really. The googlebot reads the page content but doesn't mean if it finds an ad at the end of the document, the ad really displays at the bottom of the page. It can very well display at the top when you view it with the browser. Or when js runs, etc.

garyr_h

12:20 am on Apr 19, 2012 (gmt 0)

I think the only thing too many ads can do is slow your page load, which is a factor.

Robert Charlton

2:11 am on Apr 19, 2012 (gmt 0)

Having too many ads can drive away users. This lowers the usage quality signals that Google is looking for.

I completely agree. Additionally, though, I've seen too many affiliate links nuke a page. Whether those are equivalent to ads is hard to say, but... from what I've seen... I'd guess they are.

Google also doesn't want to return organic results that are effectively engaging in arbitrage. Google wants to return sites and pages where the focus is on user engagement with site content.

So, the answer to the question about too many ads would definitely be yes... and what's not clear is what constitutes too many and what constitutes an ad.

In general, it's not a good idea to get greedy.