advertising

Google will be paying more attention to the ads on websites. The search engine’s goal is to penalize websites that abuse of advertising, said Matt Cutts, head of Google’s web spam team, during his keynote session at PubCon in Las Vegas.

Google Penalizes Ad Heavy Pages

Google’s search algorithm will be able to analyze the proportion of ads, as well as their visibility compared to the real content of the page.

Ad heavy websites usually make it difficult for users to find good content on web pages, notably because ads usually obscure content. 

Others websites that abuse of advertising also try to fool users in making them believe ads are part of the content, especially affiliated websites that want monetize their website by generating more traffic through sponsored links. 

In these both cases, websites may be considered as spam by Google, and see their rankings dramatically decrease.

Above The Fold Ads

Besides, displaying too many ads in the “above the fold” section of your website is also something to avoid in terms of SEO.  “Above the fold” is the area of a webpage that can be visible without scrolling. 

However, this announcement is a bit odd since Google AdSense advices you to place ads above the fold.

Google Is Not Perfect

Matt Cutts also admitted that Google’s search algorithm still occasionally makes mistakes and unfairly marks a website as spam. 

If your website has been marked as spam but you don't agree with this decision, you can report the problem to his team of spam experts.

SEO always evolving

As Matt Cutts noticed, “SEO will always be evolving”. Google strives to deliver a better search experience to users with better, fresher, and more personalized results.

After every update on search algorithmic or release of new Google service such as Google Instant, everyone wonders whether SEO is dead, or even whether SEO is spam.

Well, SEO survived Panda update, and will survive Google’s latest search algorithm update that allows users to get fresher results.

Read more about our SEO tips for Google and Baidu.

A recent global study by mediamind shows that CTR (Click Through Rate) of standard banners has been declining for several years.

Indeed, average CTR was 0.16% in July 2006 and gradually decreased to 0.12% in January 2007, 0.11% in January 2008, and 0.08% in January 2009. 

Average CTR stabilized

However, it now seems that CTR has stabilized around 0.09% since January 2010.

Click screenshot to enlarge

More ads means smaller CTR

This overall decline between 2006 and 2010 may be explained by two major reasons:

Frist, an increase in the number of display banners on websites makes them less and less novel to users which in turn effects their willingness to click on ads.

Second, the dramatic development of online advertising has resulted in users being exposed to more and more ads. However, the number of ads that a user clicked on did not catch up with the number of ads displayed, thus resulting in a decline of the overall CTR.

Small display spending doesn't mean high CTR in China

Below is an analysis comparing CTR and average display spending per household in several countries.

Click screenshot to enlarge

The study shows that the more money spent on display banner advertisement (i.e. the more users are exposed to display ads), the more CTR declines.

For instance, countries, like USA and Japan, with higher online display spending per household tend to have a lower CTR. On the contrary, other countries such as Malaysia, Thailand and Russia, with lower display spending, have a higher CTR.

In China, both display spending per Internet household and CTR are rather low compared to other countries.

Do you know that Gmail uses your information to display ads promoting your competitors? I know that can sound weird but let me explain about what I discovered.

Gmail displays ads relevant to your interests

A prospect used his personal email address to send me a message. He was asking me for more information about our web design and SEO services. Nothing amazing here. Yet, when I read his message in my Gmail inbox, I saw ads related to LED companies.

OK, I know that the ads that appear next to my Gmail messages are related to my interests. Google uses a contextual advertising technology, so that these ads can be be relevant to my interests. The technology isn't only based on the information contained in the displayed message but also on any recent messages in my inbox. 

 

However, what is amazing here is that there wasn't any word about LED in the message, neither in any of my previous messages. So, why did Google show me ads about LEDs?

 

 

But Gmail promotes your competitors behind your back too

I actually figured out that my potential customer's company operates in the LED sector. Gmail knew his interests in LEDs and thought that I could be interested in LEDs too. In the end, Gmail was promoting LED companies which were actually his company's competitors!

Ok, now what if he was writing one of his prospects?

Well, his prospect would have the email, and next to it the competitors' ads! Isn't that crazy?! Google puts it that way : if you're interested in LED, and you write to someone, this someone could be interested in LED's too! yeah, sure that someone could click and give money to google adwords... But google use me to target my prospects and show them my competitors to increase his revenues !!

Does that mean that when I write people using my gmail to their gmail... google displays web design and seo ads? that could seriously piss me off... what about you?

What if I am using a Hotmail / Yahoo, or any other Email client?

Well, then Google cannot track me easily, and gmail will probably not show relevant ads when I write anyone. Which means that they cannot use me to take my prospects away anymore...

Google is in fact encouraging us to use their competitors' emails services ...

 

Why does Google do that?

For obvious reasons, to increase the number of clicks on the ads displayed within gmail and thus earn more money. Usually, when Google has to chose between increasing money AND user privacy/scandal, they chose the latter. May I remind you that they don't display ads on their homepage (well, actually they do for their own services and Chrome, but that's fine). I think it's a very stupid move from them... and I wouldn't be surprised to see them change their policy if there was a scandal. The thing is, very few people know about it, so there is no scandal... for now.

My advice would be then to not use your Gmail account for professional purposes, otherwise google could use you to promote your competitors behind your back!

 

Oh ! wait... do they do the same with Google APPS, that target mainly companies... maybe it's time to avoid Gmail...

Google introduced AdWords location extensions that let advertisers put their businesses' location and phone number on a Google map ad for mobile websites and applications. The company is looking to target ads to smartphone users who often use Google Maps to get directions and find businesses.

Ads on Google Maps with location extensions

Google Maps users will see such ads surface as banner text ads with a business icon that expands to show the business location on a Google map along with the ad creative, click-to-call phone number and directions.

Click-to-call ads let advertisers add local business numbers alongside their destination URLs in mobile search ads. When smartphone users search for a local business from their mobile phone (such as Apple's iPhone and Android phones) and see ads that have these numbers, they may simply click the number to call the business.

While one may think that a Google ad that leverages user location would leverage the GPS capabilities of handsets as well as Google's location servers, Google will merely use IP addresses to determine users' locations.

Location extensions ads have greater ROIs

Business advertisers are actually not charged when users click to expand the map or get directions, advertisers are only charged when a user clicks to call the business or clicks to visit its website.

Click-through rates are also up 6% when Google provides a phone number and 8% when it offers a local address with ads.