Google Finally Tweaks and Tunes Algorithms to Penalize Adclutter and Adheavy Pages

by Vijay - 11/10/2011 5719 Views

Webmasters and advertisers compelled to clear Adclutter to enhance user experience

In any advertising medium - print, broadcast, or online - adclutter has becomes a factor as more marketers leverage the medium and consumers grow a hard skin, avoiding the advertisements at the least or clicking at other options at best. On the online turf, Search marketing is a ‘pull’ type advertising, where the keywords that are entered into the search boxes clarify searcher intent and the marketer shows ads based on the expressed intent. Internet advertising is a booming business, leveraging on which, Facebook and Google earn profits running into many millions each year, which makes a substantial portion of the search engine revenue. Facebook now accounts for one out of every three ads in the US alone, while Google owns 75 percent share of search advertising globally.

Unlike TV, where the viewer is compelled to passively consume every broadcast, the internet is an actively consumed medium, and consumers are therefore much more sensitive to advertising’s impact on the user experience. While the strategic placement of ads is the key to optimizing the efficiency of these advertising systems, not many users or searchers would be entertained with a page full of ads that prevent access to keyword based content pages but those that intend to derive profits from users clicking at any of the ads on display. If frustration could be measured in degrees or against a definite scale – how frustrated would a searcher be, when a key word produces a page full of related ads and not the right kind of content he/she is looking for. If adfatigue is one reason that could be sued against, a few hundred thousand users would become millionaires and similar number of website owners, the losers. Bad ads should be compelled to compensate for the damage they cause to the user as well as for the loss of reputation to websites that that host third party ads.

The page below gives a good illustration of what some web users might be compelled to view from clicking on the search engine results.

A survey of over 4,000 web users, conducted by burstmedia.com further corroborates evidence that cluttered sites not only annoy the audience, they diminish ad effectiveness and ultimately do a disservice to the publisher, the advertiser and the visitor. More revelations from the survey suggests that as much as 30% of online adults navigate away from a website if they perceive it to be cluttered with ads, and more than 75% of those who remain on cluttered sites pay less attention to the ads. If ad-fatigue could adversely affect the user experience, it is time for Google to rethink pricing in advertising auctions so as to promote relevant, useful ads. Nevertheless there is the need for strict guideline that dwells on ethical use of advertisement to enhance user experience and not to deter it.

While on one side it might seem like Google has been playing safe by not moderating the ads on its site, or going deep enough to authenticate the ads being placed or the URLs that appear on the ad banners, fearing loss to it revenue, Google finally seems to be making some amends.

Here is another abuse of Google Adwords where there is lack of Google Moderation.

The good news for ad-fatigued online users is that Matt Cutts, the Head of Google’s Webspam technology, has cut in with his latest intervention measures that might be implemented into the Google Algorithm in the near future or already has been, as revealed to webmasters at the Pubcon Conference - “If you have ads obscuring your content, you might want to think about it.” With Matt Cutts defining direction on what can be expected in the near future, the popular misconceptions that Google hasn’t taken action on spammy ads and content of sites serving Google ads, might fade away when we witness more focus and action being spent on the issue. This would be a confirmation of his previous disclosure that

Google absolutely takes action on sites that violate our quality guidelines regardless of whether they have ads powered by Google
Displaying Google ads does not help a site’s rankings in Google
Buying Google ads does not increase a site’s rankings in Google’s search results.

As Google is looking forward to penalizing those with ad-clutter in their pages as well as in its search result pages, Cutts said Google is testing algorithms that determine “what are the things that really matter, how much content is above the fold.” Matt’s words, “Do they see content or something else that’s distracting or annoying?” could be defining future user experience on Google search while also promoting the PageRank of sites that follow the new set of Google Adword Guidelines.

Many websites are already beginning to feel the pinch of Google’s algorithm, which is already penalizing ad heavy pages, bringing us to the inference that this is not part of the recent Panda algorithm update but might be a separate and more specific algorithm in the works. While Google algorithms tuned and tweaked towards spamfighting is expected to provide vital ways to improve quality, Google’s philosophy on webspam is to look for scalable, robust approaches that improve quality of user experience. The message from Google to the webmasters and the advertisers is to place their ads and messages in high quality content environment so as to receive maximum exposure, while also preserving brand’s reputation and enhancing the user experience. For optimization of adcluttered or adheavy pages, which affects performance get help from a professional on page Optimization Company.

Category :

Google

Tags :

SEO, Google, Technology

About Vijay

Working on the evolving Social Media platforms for the last 3 years, I have been constantly researching and updating my knowledge base and skill set to keep up and perhaps, stay a step ahead of the latest trends in Social Media and Search Engine Optimization .... more info about the author