Will Google penalise itself for excessive ads above the fold?

The problem is that this is the serp result and how google can penalise it’s own serps that don’t rank in any serp ?

User-friendly approach of Google’s algorithm is always welcome but I don’t understand when Matt says that websites with less content above-the-fold will be affected. My concern is for Artist/Band/Music websites in which larger images and videos are displayed above-the-fold and this is also for better user experience! There is no other way to do this on such websites. Will these sites also be affected by this layout algorithm update. I’ll be glad to get an answer from Google in this regards and some tips that can help such websites perform better despite this update.

Google has shown to penalise itself in the past.

However I pretty sure you cant penalise where search results come in a list of search results.

A better example would be whether will penalise Youtube and Orkut which does have some heavy advertising on them in their search results.

Google, as well as offering a fantastic service, is a money making machine. Adwords generate vast quantities of cash for this machine on a daily basis, penalising themselves would frustrate many people and I for one would search them out if they dropped from their own rankings.

Not only are Google’s ads all above the fold and bury the real content below they are also almost indistinguishable from the organic listings. Most internet users DO NOT KNOW they are clicking on a paid ad.

The do no evil Google lost to the evil adwords Google

Ha ha ha!You make me laugh out loud!I am thinking about that when a friend of mine lose his rank(from first page his website is now on 3th page).Than I told him:”If google want a user friendly content…why should I see at least 3-5 ads before the results when I search something using google?At least he must put these ads on the right side!”

This won’t change anything, it can be used to help (force) seem clients to actually put content on their homepages, however it’s still a case of the guy with the most quality links wins. Having a 100% perfect landing page will still get outranked by a crap site with say 10 pr4 homepage links.

I guess it depends on the market share. Google will not penalise itselve but users could if they were unhappy enough with the increasing number of ads. Personally I`m fairly unhappy with the increasing number of advertising spam (ads without expected results). Things like this could retransform users into organic users or people looking for alternative search engines. Both could have impacts on other Google services and finally on stock markets.

This would be a big penalty. But what will the mass do? How many of them are even able to distinguish between organic results and ads? Will there ever be an excellent alternative to Google Search that does not need to be financed with an extensive use of advertising placements? ;-)

After all, you are at the whims of Google for the most part in this business. If they change how they rank sites, your business could be gone overnight; that’s an inherent risk.

You make me laugh out loud,really!Maybe there must be a banner on the top:”Google get Ban”!Lool!Imagine that:search something,a lot of ads above the fold and after that,a banner with BANNED!

The fact is that the algorithm is changed! May I quote the Google announcement: “This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold …” If the algorithm has been changed, then everyone expects some metrics in order to apply to those changes. These metrics should be given in Webmasters Guideline. Right now we have uncertainty situation, where the AdSence 728×90 banner is “not biger” standard.

Will Google penalise itself for excessive ’ i am just finding this in google..i find it in your blog i love to see this..

My guess would be that they’re already working on it in order to not lose any marketshare, brand protection, etc. It’s fast moving technology after all. I’d say it’s a little glitch

I don’t necessarily think it is a bad thing as I detest the pages that are so full of adverts that it is difficult to pick out the actual article I chose to read from the search engine.

Thanks Patrick for sharing such a nice post with us!! This post is really very informative and contains a lot of helpful informations. I also think that Google should penalise websites with a lot of advertisements on it because no one likes to see websites full of ads where you will naturally be motivated to check all those attractive advertisements instead of checking the website.

It is really interesting to see how this will pan out Patrick. It makes sense what Google is doing but in some cases and in some specific industries having a relevant ad above the fold of the content can help publish make more advertising revenue.

I do feel this punishes some publishes from making more ad revenue and benefits others. It would also help if Google also played by its own rules too.

They need to start accepting smaller wins being the giant that they are rather than going after small business level growth figures and in terms of the brand they will need to practice what they preach as no-one likes liars and hypocrites, especially when they are in powerful positions.

@Frederik – Blekko is decent imho.

everyclick.com and thebiggive.org.uk are nice charitable search engines, for that lovely warm glow — and certainty that nowt (much) dodgy is going on.

For every service Google offers? No real alternative. They’re pretty much the Microsoft of the internet age, and everyone else is relegated to Linux status.

Honestly this is 100 thumbs up question!! yes why not Google’s page layout algorithm will not be hit on Google’s search pages.? its bit of bad things that Google makes it..

These kinds of ads are too potential lead for advertisers, but make hate the Google search results for normal users, they don’t determine that either ads or results. However nice thoughts Patrick.