I'm starting to think there's a direct correlation between ranking well or not if you use adwords. Why would they want you to rank well if you are spending alot of money with them advertising via adwords.. I know anytime a site came up in the serps i cut back on adwords for it. They are in business to make money first and foremost.. don't be fooled it's all that matters to them and shareholders. Why would they want heavy adword spenders to do well in serps.. i'd guess there is some sort of built in penalty awarded if you use adwords.. I never get adwords sites to rank as well as non. Anyone else on this?
Here I choose to take Google at their word... SERPs are about delivering quality search results, and I do believe they take that mission seriously. Even though AdWords is 99.9999% of their revenue. (What's the other part?)
I'd have to agree that there's probably no correlation. Ultimately, penalizing AdWords users in their SERPs would mean that they're punishing their customers - and rewarding their non-customers. Doesn't sound like very good business to me... Sam
Have experienced sliding down SERPs on MSN when NOT advertising with Overture! Coincidence? Maybe, but I am convinced that there was something going on there!
Forget about customers this and punishing customers.. YOU NEED TO REALIZE! This is a business ONLY! They have bottom lines, huge expenses monster salaries, insane offices, and shareholders to please with growth IT's SEVERELY in their best interest to do stuff like that
No customers? No Business!! No money!! Its that simple! Ever heard of "Never bite the hand that feeds you!"
It wasn't so long ago there was a theory stating exactly the opposite. In fact it was touted on several forums that by spending on Adwords you could escape or shorten the sandbox period.
Adwords has absolutely NO affect on SERPS. None. Nadda. Zip. Google has repeatedly stated that the rankings do not factor in Adsense or Adwords and that rankings are independant. While it is certainly possible a public company would issue false statements and risk losing billions of dollars in an SEC investigation - I have many top ranking keywords that have been unaffected by fairly large adword budgets.
Have you tried not spending that fairly large adword budget for a few weeks to see what happens to your SERPs listing?
Yes, I have - on many sites. Not sure what you mean when you say "fairly large".... but at least $10K mo. has no affect.
We have a few top 5 spots, as well as #1 in a ton of adwords, so I don't see how the adwords would be negatively affecting the SERPS.
This might be a good short-term strategy, but it would never pay off in the long term. And based on what I know of Google, they're thinking long term. Sam