Ads above the fold penalty. Should I request reinclusion?

[enriquef]

HI!

My site has been losing traffic slowly for about 18 months. But it was in January 19 that was hit big time.

My site has a lot of ads, including two 300x250 above the fold ads that were very lucrative for me.

After January 19, I decided to remove only one ad of those two, but no change was reflected in the traffic.

It is obvious that I needed to remove the other ad, but I didn't do it for two reasons.

1. I still earn money from that ad and removing it would result in serious problems.

2. A webmaster friend of mine that was hit too by this penalty, removed the ads and tried all sort of stuff to regain the lost traffic with NO LUCK in several months. He has unique and excellent content. So, after seeing his experience I didn't want to touch my biggest source of income and leave it as it is.

My site has other problems that concerns Panda and maybe Penguin, and since yesterday I've been starting to fix them.

Is it a good idea to request a reinclusion to check if I was manually penalized, without being previously notified by GWMT of any problem in my site?

Thanks in advance,

Enrique

[mrdavidingram]

Hi Enrique,

Firstly, the Panda update which you mention isn't penalty, it's an algorithmic updated that Google implemented with the general aim of reducing the number of poor quality sites in the search results.

By poor quality; they mean sites that have thin or duplicate content, sites that contain excessive advertising, and sites that are poorly designed or constructed.

If it is Panda (which it sounds like it could be considering the 18 month decline), a re-inclusion request won't help. This update is refreshed periodically (roughly every 4-6 weeks), so if you had fixed the issues on your site you would see your rankings return when it was refreshed.

The main issues to fix are generally around the quality and originality of the content, however depending how excessive your advertising is this might need to be addressed to.

There are some great resources out there for finding out if it is Panda that's effecting your site, and if so how to recover. My personal favourite is here on SeoMoz by Cyrus Shepherd:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beat-google-panda

From speaking to many Webmasters, the one thing I have found is that the people that recover are the ones who are willing to take a critical look at their own website and really own up to it's weaknesses. For example, you say your friend tried excellent content, but by what standard was it excellent? His own standards might be very different than that of Google.

The best way to stay ahead of updates like Panda is by being your own worst critic, and constantly challenging yourself to make your website the best it can possible be.

David

[enriquef]

Thanks David, and yes, I've been hit by panda and I know my site's weakness (most of it!). But it is difficult to make changes when your site was built 10 years ago with a different web in mind. I'm rebuilding it again (a whole new site with THIS CURRENT web in mind).

But I was not speaking about Panda specifically, I meant the "Ads above the fold" issue.

In January 19 my site was hit very hard by that update. Very hard. That was why I thought about a penalty.

You may think I'm dumb or something. I could fix it by just removing the ads an that's it.

But as I mentioned in my first post, a webmaster I work closely with had the same problem and removing the ads didn't help him a bit.

So, that's why I was wondering if it was a manual penalty, and requesting reinclusion was a solution to confirm it.

Thanks!

Enrique

[mrdavidingram]

Hi Enrique,

Google don't give manual penalties for too many ads above the fold. Their manual penalities are for blatent violations of their webmaster guidlines, so things like buying links, cloaking or hidden text.

Although they recommend not putting too many ads above the fold from a user experience perspective, it's certainly not one of their terms and conditions and wouldn't be the cause of a penalty.

If you friend tried removing his ads and saw no recovery, it could be one of several issues:

• It might not have been the excessive ads that were causing his problem

• If it was the ads, he may not have removed them for long enough for the Panda update to be refreshed

One very important thing though; the ads above the fold issue and the Panda issue are the same thing.

It's the same algorithm update that is focused on user experience. It is nothing manual, and the only way to recover is to fix all the issues and wait for the refresh.

If you're fixing the site then that's a great start. With a bit of luck your new site will regain the rankings with your ads still in place, and then everyone is happy

Thanks,

David

[EGOL]

Google DOES allow ads above the fold.   As long as your are not slapping the visitors face with your ads and the visitor has zero problems finding your page content without scrolling then ads are allowed.

If Google did not allow ads above the fold then most of the content providers on the web would go bankrupt.

My best is that you have a duplicate content, a skimpy content, a thin affiliate or links problem.

[enriquef]

Yes, I have it all. Not sure about incoming spammy links. I did almost everything to my site (datafeeds, lots of ads, duplicate content, etc.) but never engaged in spammy links.

I will try to find some other way to show ads and see what happens.

Thanks!