Google’s Algorithm Testing Raises Questions About “Above the Fold”

Will webmasters have a new set of hoops to jump through in 2012?

By Chris Crum · November 10, 2011 · 55 Comments

Google’s Algorithm Testing Raises Questions About “Above the Fold”

At PubCon in Las Vegas, Google’s Matt Cutts and Amit Singhal held a webmaster Q&A session with attendees, and referenced (among many other things) some algorithm testing that they’re doing, which we may see the results of in 2012. This involves Google’s algorithm examining what appears “above the fold” on a content page, and more specifically, what appears in the way of ads.

What is acceptable to have above content on a page? Tell us what you think.

As we discuss this, it’s important to keep in mind that as of right now, this is something Google is testing. There hasn’t actually been an update roll-out of this nature to my knowledge, so the effects would not necessarily have been felt by “infringing” sites yet, but from the sound of it, it’s coming.

As far as what actually happens in terms of fallout, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but this is still something site owners and webmasters should be thinking about and possibly preparing for.

Now, this concept of ad-to-content ratio is not new, and it has in fact been a topic of discussion surrounding the controversial Panda update (which Google calls “a positive change across all of its known measurements,” by the way). In fact, following the Panda update, Google (Singhal himself actually) came out with a list of questions that “step into Google’s mindset,” as to how they’re looking at the issue of quality.

On that list is: “Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?”

At PubCon, Cutts is quoted as saying, “If you have ads obscuring your content, you might want to think about it…Do they see content or something else that’s distracting or annoying?” and that they’re testing algorithms that determine ”what are the things that really matter, how much content is above the fold.”

Now that part about “what are the things that really matter” could certainly apply to things beyond ads, and this in itself raises a lot of questions.

Here are some questions the whole discussion raises. Some of the answers may become clearer in time, and others webmasters will no doubt be left to speculate upon (feel free to contribute your thoughts in the comments).

Questions:

- Is “above the fold” determined solely by sizes elements of the design?

Screen size has an influence on this. Google did say that mobile (along with social) is the future. It’s certainly going to be a good idea (as it already is) to keep the small screen in mind.

- Is Google going to specifically look at the size of ads above the fold?

Look at EzineArticles, for example (one of the sites negatively impacted by the Panda update – granted, they’ve taken numerous steps to improve as a result). This article page has 7 ads above the actual content (the body). The top ones are very small in terms of space – just a few pieces of text. Even the ones that appear below the title aren’t enormous by ad standards, and technically are smaller than the 750-wide ad standard, but are they distracting to the content?

eHow is probably in better shape on the ad side of things (Demand Media also noted in on their earnings call the other day, by the way, that they were not impacted by Google’s recent “Freshness” update).

- Is Google looking at things like spacing above the fold?

If not, AdSense ads could be most heavily impacted by this, because of the small formats.

- If this is taken into account, how will it be impacted by mouseover pull-downs and things of this nature?

- Will Google run into false positives based on pull down menus and things (javascript, ajax, etc.) – on the page, counted as content above the fold?

Granted, Google says it is getting smarter at understanding the content on the page in this regard. But how smart?

- Will large images above the text hurt you, or is this counted as the content?

For example, many of our article pages will use a relevant image above the article. It’s just one of our templates that we’ve worked into our design:

- In a case like this, do headlines need to appear above the image?

– Will all of this effectively enable Google to really determine webmasters’ sites’ designs to some extent?

It can be very hard for a business to thrive online and not be visible in Google, so businesses will (and already do sometimes, for that matter) feel obligated to make sure their design is pleasing enough to Google to avoid being lost in the search results.

- Will webmasters bow down to everything google ever says?

Please feel free to weigh in on any of these, and share what you think of the direction Google is headed in, in the comments section.

Top image credit: Mike Souza (via Flickr).

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There are 55 Comments. Add Yours.

Pallavi
November 10, 2011 at 11:44 pm
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Hi chris nice presentation.

I have few questions

why google is punishing for using its own services, as adsense is something related to content and people may find out the same theme site from these ads as well.

why google shows paid ads (adword ads) above the fold with few terms you may find out paid ads and then local listing and then organic listings. This clearly means google is no more interested in organic listing as they won’t getting any thing from thee listings.

and compelling business to invest in adwords.

They should clearly mention in their tag line that they are more into paid campaign. So people looking for paid litings are welcome and others may leave
Damian
November 11, 2011 at 1:37 am
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So much to think about
Himanshu Jain
November 11, 2011 at 4:50 am
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Actually even a thought like this can only be rated as funny. Even temples and churches do not run without donations or some kind of financial aids and certainly a website or shall I say all the websites are not churches or temples. They are businesses. They have to give some and also take some. No one can ONLY “give” and that too “quality” without any inflows to support that “quality”.
Gem Jewelry
November 11, 2011 at 7:28 am
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It can be very hard for a business to thrive online and not be visible in Google, so businesses will (and already do sometimes, for that matter) feel obligated to make sure their design is pleasing enough to Google to avoid being lost in the search results.
Renwick Jeffrey
November 11, 2011 at 10:09 am
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I think that sites that are doing affiliate marketing should not be allowed on page one. As affiliate sites make more and more money, they can purchase fancy seo programs and keep themselves in front of legitimate e-commerce businesses. It even looks like your site is doing affiliate marketing. But you are not an e-commerce business. If I were in charge I would give preference to companies that were “Made in U.S.A. companies.
MJ
November 11, 2011 at 11:55 am
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That’s ridiculous. It needs to be broken up. It is time for a true search engine to take its place.
Ty
November 11, 2011 at 7:40 pm
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I was discussing this with a business associate today when one of his servers sent a message to the app he designed to notify him of a server problem. A site being hosted on this particular server was filled full of ads to the point of excessive strain on the server. This particular website will take a serious hit if Google implements this as part of its’ algorithm. I actually personally do not like sites that are filled with annoying banner and text ads making the site look ugly and and distracting. I think massive amounts of banner ads went out of style years ago. I am curious to how Google makes these changes and how it will effect AdSense if at all. I would imagine Google has a solution for that in the works though. Kind of funny but I was recently reading how Google does not know how to market their products on a blog, but yet they are a huge advertising agency in retrospect if you think about it. Only time will tell on this one, but will matter to much for some business owners.
Peter
November 12, 2011 at 10:17 am
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Uh oh… If this rolls out by any chance, plenty of people will have sleepless nights…
Colmeiaweb
November 13, 2011 at 4:31 pm
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How Google will look for sites online sales?

Users when seeking this type of website are looking for much more a product than a lot of content talking about this product.

So it should be treated differently?

An example: when a user types into Google “guitar history” clearly want content on their research, but if you type “buy guitar” makes it clear that seeking an online store. So in this case, if Google showed a blog with content about the history of the guitar, would not be showing the site most relevant to your search.

(Google translator)

Sorry, I do not speak English
Michael
November 13, 2011 at 10:48 pm
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Geez does anybody sell their own products or does everyone write what they think people want to read and run ads. A product people need to solve a problem with good content on why the product will help them or solve their problem is what Google places high. I never liked all these sit at home run ads for products I have I developed. 8 years ago Google did have all these black hat problems and scammers to deal so bring it on above the fold. I see nothing changed. I only loose when others want to work form home and sell what I have to go to work for everyday. My retail webshop and service. Get a real job my friends and stop selling get rich quick there is not such thing hard work good habits plus the compound effect takes you either up or down.
GillyBoomShakal
November 14, 2011 at 11:12 am
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o puleeeze help, my twitter a/c has been hacked, it appears to have been taken over by a spammer, I can’t log out of it to try and log in under my name and it won’t let me contact twitter support. Any suggestions?
Joe Youngblood
November 15, 2011 at 12:05 pm
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Chris,

I disagree that this is not in the algo already. Barry Schwartz asked Matt Cutts about it directly and matt said that it was included currently and being “ramped up”. That lends credence to the belief that something like this was tossed into the Panda algo and will be expanded as part of panda or taken out and made into a new algo.
- Joe Youngblood
  November 15, 2011 at 12:12 pm
  Reply
  
  that being said the large image question is interesting. Google will likely look for static images in standard IAB sizes and correlate those to ads, but is the large image considered “distracting and annoying”. maybe they’ll use their new image search features to match the image to the content of the article. so a massive image of Matt Cutts while talking about Google, Search and Algos might be ok but a massive image of a seal jumping through a hoop is probably not.
- Joe Youngblood
  November 15, 2011 at 12:22 pm
  Reply
  
  and just to record my prediction. If the content obstruction update goes through i think we’ll see websites turn to a wider page format to get more content above the fold with the same number of ads. CPM advertisers don’t want to pay for their ad being below the fold. This could be alleviated if a system was able to detect ad location on the page and charge different CPM rates for different locations.
Slap That Panda Update
November 17, 2011 at 2:57 pm
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You actually make it appear really easy with your presentation but I find this matter to be actually something that I think I would never understand. It sort of feels too complex and extremely vast for me. I am having a look ahead to your next publish, I’ll try to get the dangle of it!
Steven
November 27, 2011 at 2:30 pm
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It all sounds like snake oil to me. Not only does Google not have enough employees working on just search to accomplish so many changes to their algorithms, but there is by far too much data for Google to test it’s algorithm on, get the results back, and know that they’re heading in the right direction for improvements, in such little time they have per sandbox test they need to run.
Steve Kinney
January 21, 2012 at 11:24 am
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Wow! A lot of people posting today seem to think that Google owes it to them to “sit still and do nothing.” But what I see happening over time is a feedback loop:

1. Google changes its algorithms in an effort to deliver more relevant content in Google search returns.

2. SEO minded web developers adapt their methods to deliver more advertising content in Google search traffic.

3. Google changes its algorithms in an effort to deliver more relevant content in search returns.

Etc. ad infinitum. I know there are lots of people whose whole job is to view content as secondary, serving only as bait for delivering advertisements. Nothing wrong with that. Caveat emptor, etc., and any website owner who does not exercise common sense in balancing relevant content and advertising space pretty much deserves what happens next: Reduced time on site, fewer page views, higher bounce rates, and eventually, lower search return placement.

Google has (potential) competitors, and normal end users have their own idea of how much garbage, clutter, and distraction (yes I mean our beloved advertisements) it takes to degrade a website’s performance as a medium for delivering relevant information. If Google fails to take this into account in its search rank algorithms, they will start losing market share to competitors who do.

Lookit the big picture, folks. Quality as defined by the website visitor and quality as defined by an SEO contractor are normally very different things, and at war with one another. Those who can find win/win solutions will come out on top. If Google fails to facilitate this process, Google will start to lose relevance and revenue – and in the long run, everyone eventually tends to get more or less what they deserve.