Does Higher Adsense CTR Lead to Lower Rankings?

[kidder]

This is a pretty simple question but the answer is probably very complex. The messages from Google are mixed at best, I have the adsense people giving us advice on how to increase CTR and in the back of my mind I'm thinking no way. Faster exit times will cause a drop in rankings right? If I'm good at my game as an affiliate and I move the visitor on quickly with a good does of buyer motivation its going to work against me in terms of rankings according to the new Google playbook? This new situation is an affiliate / adsense killer.

[Simsi]

I'm not sure that question can even be answered without knowing how Google thinks as there are two opposing theories. One is that the user didn't find what they wanted so clicked an ad. The other is that the ads were so well targetted they simply took a user on to the next step in the selling process.

It's an interesting question though IMO.

[ken_b]

I'll tell you what a Google staff told me the other day.

Someone from the Optimization Team took it upon themselves to phone me the other day. That was a surprise since I've been ignoring the email pleas to add more ads to my pages.

After listening to their suggestions (some of which I'm trying) for a while I asked if loading up my pages with ads above the fold might actually be pushing the AdSense TOS a bit.

The answer.... no, not as long as there was enough other content on the page.

BUT

it might be a problem for the Spam Team, ....

and that might hurt my rankings in the serps.

A LOT of "mights" in that conversation, so take it for what it's worth.

.

[onebuyone]

I think it is all about bonce rate. AdSense click means the same as bounce back to SERP.

[netmeg]

I have not found it to be the case.

[kidder]

Adsense to one side it probably makes good sense to open all affiliate links in a new window, something I have not done in days gone by and I wonder if that would count as a bounce or exit click by G's definition.

[azn romeo 4u]

Last year, I had a CTR of .5 I think. This year after a lot of tweaking I manage to pop my CTR to 1-1.25. Suprising enough my earnings ended doubling. But so did my traffic.

So, no, in my experience, higher CTR does not mean lower rankings. I'm one of the lucky few sites that has not be majorly effected by panda yet.

I posted this a week ago, but you can try CSS placement of ADS. Place the Adsense ads at the bottom of all your html and use CSS positioning to have it appear above the fold.

Maybe to the bots, it appears the ads are on the bottom of the page. I done this for a year, also it was even recommended on google officla support page. Works like a charm.