Google has tweaked its algorithm to punish sites positioning too many adverts above the fold.
The search giant explained it is in response to complaints from web users unable to find the content they searched for on pages they visit.
Google engineer Matt Cutts said on a blog post, “As we’ve mentioned previously, we’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content ‘above-the-fold’ can be affected by this change.
“If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.”
