Does participating in Google Ads (Google’s Pay Per Click or PPC program) help your non-PPC rankings?
The corollary to that is the question:
Does Google punish sites that don’t pay them for for Google Ads by lowering their rankings, thus encouraging participation in Ads where Google makes money?
The answer is No. Always has been and always will. The simple reason is that doing this would reduce the relevance of Google’s main organic rankings. Consequently, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, or another search engine would unseat them as the Big Dog of search.
More savvy searchers typically skip over the PPC ads because they understand the sponsored links up top aren’t there because they’re the most relevant match for your search. Those top-ranking PPC links are there largely because the advertiser is willing to pay more than others for your click.
A blog post over at WSI said it well:
Doing AdWords does NOT directly help or effect rankings. Integrity in this area is a cornerstone of Google’s business. If this were violated it would damage Google beyond repair, not to mention a slew of legal actions. Google would never risk those consequences. Google has stated over and over that AdWords advertising will not affect rankings. I don’t always believe Google but….
I have been managing Adwords and doing search engine optimization for my clients for many years. I have managed every combination of clients that do or don’t do AdWords combined with SEO. There have also been cases where SEO clients stop doing AdWords, or start doing AdWords. I can say that I have never seen anything that indicated that AdWords affected rankings.
There are a number of reputable SEO research firms that study this issue and every one of them has come to the same conclusion: AdWords does not affect rankings.
My experience is completely in agreement with that assessment.
There’s a place for Google Ads, of course. And it’s true that if you show up in both the ads and the organic results on the first page it super-validates you as a site that searchers will want to click on first. But Google Ads itself has no impact on how highly you rank in the organic results.
Bottom Line: Google Ads won’t help your organic rankings. Only SEO can do that.
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Although I agree this would be good business practice but I can says as of this posting, it appears that google does care more about those that “pay to play” then those that don’t. We rank number one on all other search engine than google, yet on google the folks that have an $11k product on their adsense program they won’t even give us an impression let alone rank us number one. Seems highly suspect this business “ethics” and cornerstone. Can I say you can buy top ranking from google?
Not seeing your website I can’t comment on specifics, but Google’s ranking algorithm factors in many more things than other search engines. And their PageRank, based on each page’s and site’s inbound link profile is a major difference. Google has always claimed that Google Ads has no effect on organic rankings, and it makes sense that it wouldn’t because that would result in organic results that don’t match user needs as well and drive searchers to other search sources.
Thanks for the post, but I must disagree. AdWords will definitely have an effect on SEO rankings, if applied intelligently.
The thing is that you can use AdWords to signal Google that users searching with certain keywords love your content. If visitors that are finding your content via the queries in question exhibit a high organic CTR, dwell time and other seemingly ‘satisfied’ behavior, Google will judge your content to be relevant to the queries – and you’ll rise in SERP.
I’ve written about it here: https://www.storyhunter.dk/2017/12/how-google-adwords-effect-seo-rankings/?lang=en
Thanks for this. I agree that your approach makes a lot of sense. What I was addressing was the common myth that simply buying Google AdWords will result in Google rewarding you with organic results, and that’s simply not true. However as you point out the UX signals Google will notice as a result of an AdWords campaign should provide positive ranking signals for your organic listings.
Thanks also for sharing your excellent article.
Yes, that’s not unusual if half of your visitors had been coming via your AdWords. Did you check to see how your traffic from specifically organic search did? I’d be surprised if that changed as a result of dropping your AdWords campaigns.
I have been reading up about this, thanks for the post Bill. As I have done a few ads on adwords, compared to my organic search the bounce rate and page click through was just too bad for me to even believe that the clicks were even genuine. Even the timing of the clicks was fishy! Most (organic search) people stick around for four pages at least. I have an average time spent on my site at 0.00.05 or less via adwords! I have paused the whole thing, and am working on PR instead. The whole adwords thing is over complicated. I think deliberately.
Thanks for the feedback, Liv. That’s a shockingly high bounce rate on your AdWords. I don’t blame you for pausing your ads. I wonder if other readers have seen similar results?
The answer is No. Always has been and always will. The simple reason is that doing this would reduce the relevance of Google’s main organic rankings. Consequently, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, or another search engine would unseat them as the Big Dog of search.Doing AdWords does NOT directly help or effect rankings. Integrity in this area is a cornerstone of Google’s business. If this were violated it would damage Google beyond repair, not to mention a slew of legal actions. Google would never risk those consequences. Google has stated over and over that AdWords advertising will not affect rankings. I don’t always believe Google but….
Although I agree this would be good business practice but I can says as of this posting, it appears that google does care more about those that “pay to play” then those that don’t. We rank number one on all other search engine than google, yet on google the folks that have an $11k product on their adsense program they won’t even give us an impression let alone rank us number one. Seems highly suspect this business “ethics” and cornerstone. Can I say you can buy top ranking from google?
Not seeing your website I can’t comment on specifics, but Google’s ranking algorithm factors in many more things than other search engines. And their PageRank, based on each page’s and site’s inbound link profile is a major difference. Google has always claimed that Google Ads has no effect on organic rankings, and it makes sense that it wouldn’t because that would result in organic results that don’t match user needs as well and drive searchers to other search sources.
Good way of telling, and good post to take facts on the topic of my presentation topic,
which i am going to deliver in school.
Thanks, Sebastian. I’m glad you found it helpful. Have a wonderful presentation in school.
Thanks for the post, but I must disagree. AdWords will definitely have an effect on SEO rankings, if applied intelligently.
The thing is that you can use AdWords to signal Google that users searching with certain keywords love your content. If visitors that are finding your content via the queries in question exhibit a high organic CTR, dwell time and other seemingly ‘satisfied’ behavior, Google will judge your content to be relevant to the queries – and you’ll rise in SERP.
I’ve written about it here: https://www.storyhunter.dk/2017/12/how-google-adwords-effect-seo-rankings/?lang=en
Thanks for this. I agree that your approach makes a lot of sense. What I was addressing was the common myth that simply buying Google AdWords will result in Google rewarding you with organic results, and that’s simply not true. However as you point out the UX signals Google will notice as a result of an AdWords campaign should provide positive ranking signals for your organic listings.
Thanks also for sharing your excellent article.
think yes i have a website and when i stopped my ad campaign the visitors dropped to half.
Yes, that’s not unusual if half of your visitors had been coming via your AdWords. Did you check to see how your traffic from specifically organic search did? I’d be surprised if that changed as a result of dropping your AdWords campaigns.
I have been reading up about this, thanks for the post Bill. As I have done a few ads on adwords, compared to my organic search the bounce rate and page click through was just too bad for me to even believe that the clicks were even genuine. Even the timing of the clicks was fishy! Most (organic search) people stick around for four pages at least. I have an average time spent on my site at 0.00.05 or less via adwords! I have paused the whole thing, and am working on PR instead. The whole adwords thing is over complicated. I think deliberately.
Thanks for the feedback, Liv. That’s a shockingly high bounce rate on your AdWords. I don’t blame you for pausing your ads. I wonder if other readers have seen similar results?