Google AdSense As A Ranking Factor

Google’s SEO AdSense is an ad product that lets online businesses and site owners monetise their content by showing targeted ads on their sites. Many people believe that this ad product can help their SEO as publishers can earn a lot when visitors view or click these ads.

Because of the benefits that AdSense provides SEO companies, some believe that AdSense is a ranking factor. Many people claim that sending traffic to pages that contain advertisements from AdSense serves Google’s interests as a search engine company.

When publishers use AdSense on their website, the pages automatically become Google’s platform to show ads. The search engine company gets incentives when SEOs send traffic to web pages that display AdSense ads.

If there are more site visitors, it means there would be more views and ad clicks. As a result, it would encourage Google’s advertisers to pay more for ads.

However, there is a downside to it, as some experts believe that it would prevent site owners from acquiring unbiased organic search results.

Some people are also concerned if AdSense ads could affect rankings negatively because Google created specific guidelines on how to place ads properly. Below are some of the claims and evidence about AdSense’s effect on SEO rankings.

AdSense is a positive signal

One theory states that AdSense advertisements positively affect rankings because Google finds them profitable.

Google has many intertwined services, such as AdSense, Google Ads, and organic search. Therefore, many speculate that these share signals between each other.

With all of these theories floating around, it appears that many people find Google unreliable. Some SEO companies and site owners believe these speculations because they do not trust that Google would keep the search rankings fair and objective.

Many lawsuits and investigations into alleged anticompetitive business practices have damaged Google’s reputation as a trusted search engine company. At some points, even government officials accused the search engine company of favouring its products in search results and original apps on Android. Google denies these allegations despite continued investigations into their practices.

AdSense is a negative signal

Another theory suggests that online businesses have to be very careful when using AdSense on their websites.

According to some, having too many advertisements or placing them in the wrong places will negatively impact one’s search rankings.

This theory comes from the fact that Google is slowly favouring websites with excellent user experience. If one crowds a web page with many advertisements, it will create a poor user experience in many different ways.

For instance, ads could give visitors a hard time identifying the main content. They could also make the page load slower and cause the page to move around as it loads. Such issues could worsen a website’s page experience score. For these reasons, many people think AdSense could become a negative ranking factor.

The crowd is divided on whether AdSense is a positive or a negative ranking factor. However, Google directly addressed some of these questions in their official AdSense Help guide.

Google states that AdSense does not affect a website’s position in the search results. The search engine company said that they believe in freedom of expression, and so they offer users broad access to content on the Internet. They also stated that their relationships with paying publishers and advertisers do not influence their search results in any way.

Therefore, websites should not use AdSense under the assumption that it will boost their search rankings because Google confirmed that this theory is not true.

One should take note of this thought if they are doing a competitive SERP analysis. If they are not using AdSense ads, but their competitors are, they should not feel threatened because it is not a factor that could improve rankings.

As for people who believe that AdSense is a negative ranking factor, it is confirmed that it does not negatively affect rankings.

Generally, ads can worsen a site’s user experience, which would result in lower rankings. However, placing ads on a website isn’t a bad practice per se. Ads only become problematic when they start disrupting the user experience.

For instance, Google tells website owners and publishers to comply with Better Ads Standards. The Better Ads Standards lists down places where it would be inappropriate to place ads on a website’s desktop and mobile versions.

Moreover, the AdSense Help Center created a section that contains the best practices for ad placement. Here, they ask publishers and online businesses to follow this set of guidelines.

Lastly, Google’s page experience update considers how people use advertisements on a web page. The search engine company advises everyone not to use advertising techniques that are interrupting, distracting, and do not contribute to a good user experience.

Websites can use advertisements that can negatively affect rankings, but that is not limited to using AdSense. Google has confirmed that AdSense is not exempt from the negative signals that ads could cause, just like how it treats invasive AdSense just like any other type of intrusive advertisement.

Many people may use AdSense incorrectly, and this could result in poor rankings. However, this is true for all ads. Therefore, it is not accurate for anyone to say that SEO AdSense is a positive or negative ranking factor.

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