How does Google Handle Websites with Too Many Ads?

Discover how does Google handle websites that has too many ads and banners, does it affect the website ranking and what is the optimal number of ads on a single website – find out all about the ranking factors affect how Google Search deals with sites full of ads.

John Mueller from Google weighs in on how sites with lots of ads are handled when it comes to ranking in search results.

This topic came up during the Google Search Central live stream on December 11 where Mueller addresses the following question:

“For some queries I see Google ranking websites which have a high amount of ad content, which is creating a poor search experience. How is Google dealing with those websites?”

In response, Mueller describes several factors that can determine how sites with many ads are dealt with in search results. On rare occasions they may be removed from search, but only if extreme conditions are met.

Mueller also goes over why Google will choose to keep sites in its index when they’re in obvious violation of webmaster guidelines. He had much to say on the subject, and here’s everything summarized for you.

Website That have Too Many Ads in Search Results

Mueller couldn’t speak to the handling of any specific site as no example was provided, so he spoke more broadly to the handling of sites with a poor user experience.

He points to several algorithm updates that can impact the how sites with a poor user experience are ranked:

Page Layout Algorithm: Impacts sites with too many ads above the fold. Launched in 2012.

Page Speed Algorithm: Sites with an abundance of ads may be impacted if pages are slow to load. Launched in 2018

Core Web Vitals: Specifically targets sites with a suboptimal user experience. Launches in May 2021.

Mueller didn’t mention this one, but I’ll add that Google’s intrusive interstitial penalty could also impact sites with an excessive number of ads.

“It’s hard to say without any examples, but there are various things that we do take into account with regard to the user experience side of things. So on the one hand we did, I think a couple years ago, an update where the above the fold content is something we weighed a little bit more.

So that’s something where if there is a lot of ad content above the fold perhaps it might be affected by that. There are other updates that have happened in the past with regard to speed. There’s the Core Web Vitals which is going to be launched in May, with regards to ranking in search results, which also helps there.”

Read more here.