18 replies to this topic

[Alarr]

Hi Gang:

I signed up for Google Alerts (monitoring about 150 search terms) and I've noticed a trend recently...

On several occasions, sites that include Google ads are obtaining rankings in the top 20 organic positions for the search terms I'm purchasing. I've seen this happen now with 4 of the terms I advertise with.


IMPLICATIONS


1) The problem is that Google ads rotate. In many cases, if you DO the search and visit the site with the ads, MY ad might not be there making the search irrelevant.

2) The top 30 positions are being seeded by these "less relevant results" leaving less positions available for me to optimize my own site.

3) If this persists and becomes more prevalent, Google will begin to earn revenue on organic search results (would take two clicks to earn their ad revenue).

Just thought I would share this observation. Any comments?

[Scottie]

It sounds a little like mixed up cause and effect.

These site owners were getting good traffic, so they put up Adsense to capitalize on it OR they put up Adsense and were rewarded with top rankings.

Why not test it? Put Adsense on your site and see if you get better rankings.

Personally, I think it's a coincidence and not a result.

[JeremyH]

I agree with Scottie.

I think its coincidental.

Speaking as a person who has a website and uses Google Ads for revenue:

I feel that I may have more incentive to develop and improve my website over my competitor who might receive no financial benefit over the success of their website.

And for the most part, over time, the better websites are the ones that rise to the top of the rankings.

[Alarr]

I would have thought it was coincidence too, except its my ad copy that is displayed in the Google SERP as the description.

[Scottie]

Are you saying they are indexing the ads as part of the on-page copy? Cause those ads are delivered using javascript and the engines don't see them.

Is it possible that your ad copy has been scraped and hidden on that page somewhere?

[Jill]

I don't know about the ad copy showing up in the organic serps, but I have noticed some funny business going on with Google LOVING pages that contain adsense. They are totally littering the SERPs lately, and I'm having trouble imagining that it's a coincidence. Certainly good be, but it just seems soooo prevalent and strange....

[Alarr]

Are you saying they are indexing the ads as part of the on-page copy?  Cause those ads are delivered using javascript and the engines don't see them.

Is it possible that your ad copy has been scraped and hidden on that page somewhere?

Yes, ad copy and URL! Sorry I have not responded sooner I've been silly busy during the last 2 weeks and it's hard to get to the forums as often as I want to.

[goodman]

I searched pretty hard to prove or disprove this theory at one point. If you look at MSN or Yahoo results they will also include just as many, or more, of the AdSense-publisher sites in many cases.

This has everything to do with the sheer number of publishers who are using AdSense, I suspect.

You too can play the home game. Results may vary.

[xedis]

Nop, I'm more than sure it's not a coincidence as it happened to me, also

[projectphp]

You too can play the home game.

Do I have too???

I think it is just market penetration. Every man, his dog, his friend's dog, her fleas, and the fleas nats, are all onto AdSense. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find an site run by a dude in his undies that doesn't use AdSense.

[Jill]

Welcome xedis!

[BobetteKyle]

They are totally littering the SERPs lately, and I'm having trouble imagining that it's a coincidence. Certainly good be, but it just seems soooo prevalent and strange....

I can see where that can happen naturally, without Google giving preference to sites showing AdSense...seems in a lot of cases that sites near the top of SERPs tend to be the larger, more informational type of sites, i.e. most of the pages are not direct sales pages. These are also the kind of pages more likely to have AdSense, because the ads don't directly compete with the site's business so the site owners see it as a way to make more money fro the site. Correlation without causality (I just gotta pull one of those "sophisticated" math phrases from the deep recesses every once in a while ).

Don't know if the opposite holds true in general (that is, if search terms with sales-oriented pages near top of SERPs have kept their positions against informational sites that have started showing AdSense), but my very unscientific survey of one search term - search engine optimization - shows that one holding up pretty well against AdSense-containing sites.

[copywriter]

I did a very simple test and none of the sites in the top 5 for any of the below keyphrases ran AdSense ads:

copywriter
computer printer
automobile parts
cruise vacation

I wonder... are the sites you're seeing AdSense ads/top rankings on the more informational sites? That would make sense because those with informational sites wouldn't mind sending people away to buy from someone else. People with sites that are selling something WOULD mind sending their visitors away. Just a thought.

[Alarr]

I wonder... are the sites you're seeing AdSense ads/top rankings on the more informational sites?  That would make sense because those with informational sites wouldn't mind sending people away to buy from someone else.  People with sites that are selling something WOULD mind sending their visitors away.  Just a thought.

Epinions seems to come up quite often for the terms that I monitor. I'll try to find more time to get some statistics... or if anyone else has some numbers please share!

:frog:

[projectphp]

Epinions seems to come up quite often for the terms that I monitor.

Ok, but is that a change from pre-AdSense behaviour?

Personally, I don't see it at all. Amazon still ranks very well for virtually any search about buying "stuff", and they don't have AdSense, do they??!?!?

IMHO, cause and effect are mixed at best, and at worst it is a self full-filling prophecy. I used to work in a Casino, and I heard things like (these are true quotes):
The colour after a zero is black 70% of the time
9 times out of ten a dealer wins when they have an {INSERT NUMBER}.

These sorts of myths exist because we keep such bad records mentally. It is like when you hear a word, and then all day long, you keep hearing that word. It was always there, you just never really noticed it before