The CLS problem is caused not only by collapsing anchor ad, but also by normal anchor ad. The ONLY difference - collapsing ad causes a much larger CLS offset - up to 0.55, while normal anchor - 0.18!

I'm just not clear right now whether the problem is massive, or only for individual webpages and projects, depending on the structure of the page. My page Theme is really old. Now I'm creating a new page based on a fresh Wordpress theme, and I'll let you know if it changed anything or not!

Awesome, thanks.

I did a lot of testing with wordpress themes - no differnece at all.. in all of WP themes i tested collapsing anchor ads, and normal anchor ads that appear from above, cause CLS - the colapsing ad causes a much larger CLS offset - up to 0.55, while normal anchor - up to 0.18!

by the way - I noticed that in my country a lot of news portals have increased CLS, and they all have that advertising format. This makes me think that many have not noticed the matter at all, or are not able to explain it yet. Possibly, therefore Google is not solving this problem yet, because the noise is not loud enough! Possibly, the people responsible at Google do not know about it either. Or they know, but are in no hurry to solve it, because they have other priorities!

We tested one solution, that i found in other forum! It helps with normal anchor (at least for us), but not with colapsing anchor:

Add this to CSS:

body { padding-top:0px !important; }

Anchor ad will cut a bit your header, it's only you who can decide if that's worth it.

Hello there,

Are you still experiencing this issue?

It’s been almost a year since Google introduced Anchor Collapsible Ads, and the CLS problem still persists. My site had a CLS score of 0.43, which dropped to zero after I disabled anchor ads completely for four weeks. Now, I’m planning to test anchor ads again—this time without the collapsible option.

I remember that the majority of revenue was driven by anchor collapsible ads, but what's the point if the CPC drops and people hate to navigate on my site? On long term I would lose the money anyway.

I have to place them at the top because my menu is located at the bottom.

I’m only running them on mobile.

Thank you!