MrSavage - 7:26 pm on Nov 10, 2011 (gmt 0)

I think we should not lose site of undercurrents in all this. Who thinks Microsoft will be unveiling an adsense like program? *raises hand*. With that in mind, there is more to this than what's best for the site visitor. After, it's highly hypocritical isn't it to indicate ads affecting your organic ranking if it's being done to ensure quality sites. In that respect Google should be feeling odd about saying how bad ads are above the fold when it's their bread and butter. So they are suggesting that visitors to the Google search results are getting less quality because of the expanding ad space?

Regardless, this is a story with an end not told. Could M$ say anything such as people not willing to use their ads for fear of reduced organic traffic in Google? Who has removed ads since Panda? *raises hand*.

I still say it's fine for Google to use the ads space vs. content space in the algo. I think it's safe to say that most content farms need those ads to make their ventures worthwhile.