Ad Heavy SEO Penalties & Issues You Should Understand
Ad Heavy SEO Penalties & Issues You Should Understand
Publishers have more [SEO variables to account for](https://blog.ezoic.com/preparing-google-algorithm-changes-2018/) than ever before. One of those elements is ads and the role they may be playing in keyword rankings. The concept of ad heavy SEO penalties gained fame in early 2017 when several popular SEO discussion websites listed ad density as a possible reason for rankings issues.
The ad heavy issue gained prominence during the _Google Fred update_ because many of the sites that had lost rankings seemed to have “_a lot of ads on them”;_ according to the reporters investigating the update (which Google would not officially confirm)_._
Since then, ad heavy SEO penalties and ad heavy ranking losses have attracted conspiracy-level scrutiny every time the industry has noticed broad [volatility in search engine results](https://www.accuranker.com/grump/).
Below, I’ll highlight the little-exercised secret for understanding if your site is ACTUALLY being penalized for improper ad density. I’ll also dig into some real data around whether or not ad density actually has played a role in recent well-known Google algorithm updates.
Has my website lost rankings because of too many ads?
This is what everyone reading this article likely wants to know. There are two different questions associated with this query, and I can help you answer them both.
1. **Straightforward**: Has Google penalized my site in any way, at any time for ad density that is too high?
2. **More Complex:** Is my ad density negatively impacting [objective user experiences](https://blog.ezoic.com/3-user-experience-metrics-correlated-seo/) on my site — which is something Google measures to determine search satisfaction?
- Block publisher ads in Chrome browsers
- Penalize your website in any way for violating _Better Ad Standards_
- Penalize your rankings for ad density
> Right click and select “Inspect”. This will allow you to select and calculate the total pixels by device type. Then, sum up the area of your ad units. It will be different for each device type.
> **The equation would look like this ——>
> ****\[sum of ad unit area\]/\[sum of page area\] \* 100.**
##### I don’t have any Google Abusive Experience violations or ad density over 30%
Great! This means Google is not actively penalizing or reducing your search rankings intentionally.
Any SEO agency or consultant that tells you different is likely grasping at straws.
However, this doesn’t mean ads aren’t affecting your SEO… let me explain
Ads affect SEO, but not how you think
_Data from a single publisher website_
We talked about doing [ad heavy experiments](https://blog.ezoic.com/running-ad-balance-experiments-that-actually-work/) here. But, before we even get to experiments, we have to get rid of the number one cause of these issues to begin with…
_**Subjective perception**_
Is my website ad heavy and am I losing rankings because of it?
You don’t have to guess or get opinions on this. In fact, **anyone giving you advice that isn’t presenting objective Ad Experience Report data or visitor experience data should be quickly ignored on this subject as they will simply be guessing.**
The first place you should be looking is inside Google Web Tools. It’s free and will present you with hard facts on any existing penalties or issues Google has actively recognized with your site.
Next, you’ll want to start experimenting and better understanding how ads might be affecting visitor behavior on your website. I think this is [the best way to do that](https://www.ezoic.com/).
If you’ve done these things, it’s better to turn your attention towards how your content is affecting authentic visitor engagement.
Questions? Let’s start a thread below. I’ll be happy to chime in with my expertise on this subject.