AdSense and SERP Coorolation.

I believe there to be a correlation between AdSense and SERPS?

[drshields]

I have almost factual evidence that there is a direct corrolation between AdSense/AdWords and SERPS - discounting the paid advertisment links. Here is a rought estimate of what I have experienced:

Mid Jan: Site launched, indexed within days but not in top SERPS.

Early Feb: Minimal traffic. Implement AdSense; within a week, traffic skyrockets. I'm #1 in google for keyword. Yay.

Mid March: "Let's try out YPN". YPN: I make more money than AdSense. Only problem; all of a sudden I am in the google sandbox.

April: Screw it - back to AdSense. Strange... all of a suddent I am #1 in google again. No kidding...

Early May: as an experiment to see what happens with google ratings: I take off AdSense, run site with absolutely no ads for a few days... I fall to bottom of first page with Adsesne.

End of May: I re-implement AdSense. Within a few days, I am #1 again in google. #*$!?

My experience suggests that Google serach results may perhaps be connected to AdSense earnings. Google would never admit it, but I have some pretty serioius data here to prove otherwise.

If anybody is intersted in the site, PM me. I was just interested in sharing this information and my experience.

[david_uk]

I've just started a new site, and am using adwords to get visitors. I'm getting some organic traffic already, so if it's really true that using AW/AS helps serps position I'm delighted :) However, I'll reserve judgement on this for a while to see how things progress.

On a broader point not particularly related to the post, I'm not sure that giving people who use google products and services an advantage (If that is the case) is really a good idea from the surfers point of view. It has the potential to turn a search engine into a paid listing, and that's contrary to the purpose of a search engine IMHO. Although it makes sense from Google's horrendously short-sighted point of view, it can only last until people switch from the paid list to using a real search engine.