Recently Adwords got rid of side ads, but added more ads on the top and bottom, and maybe more product ads at the top. Anyone see a change in organic traffic? My traffic is down about 20% since the change.
aml1281
8:06 pm on Feb 29, 2016 (gmt 0)
Possibly seeing the same here. Between 20% and 30% decrease, first hitting early last week.
Though Google Webmaster Tools is only showing data up to 23rd February for me, it looks like it's confirming the pattern by showing a marked dip in CTR.
RedBar
8:54 pm on Feb 29, 2016 (gmt 0)
Welcome to WebmasterWorld aml1281
Fingers crossed however no noticeable change for my sites.
EditorialGuy
10:05 pm on Feb 29, 2016 (gmt 0)
No. In fact, our traffic has been climbing slightly over the past few weeks.
Google said the new layout (up to four ads above the organic results) would mostly be seen for "highly commercial queries," and we don't get much traffic from those.
RyuUK
10:43 pm on Feb 29, 2016 (gmt 0)
Have noticed a dip myself, but thought I'd been hit by an algo change. Most of my sites are in financial, gambling etc and so this is seen across most of my keywords. The ad block at the bottom of the page is a problem because it takes your attention away from those mid to bottom spots. Then you have the extra row at the top that takes attention away from #1. Typical greedy Google. Looks more like a glorified MFA site now.
johnhh
12:06 am on Mar 1, 2016 (gmt 0)
@EditorialGuy you most be near an IPO with all those traffic increases you keep reporting
JS_Harris
7:45 am on Mar 1, 2016 (gmt 0)
I'm seeing an increase in "feedback" boxes at the same time as the new 4 ad layout. Several of my #1 results that brought traffic are now still #1 but below the fold and getting half the traffic they used to.
4-ad layout + a feedback box and suddenly there are no results above the fold. Since that feedback box is purely copied content the Google search results fit the very definition of pure spam.
aml1281
12:04 pm on Mar 1, 2016 (gmt 0)
Trend seems to be continuing here - no significant change in reported position in search results, but noticeably reduced CTR.
I'm running a niche reference site, but many of my top terms are also popular with advertisers and could fall into that "highly commercial" area. Like JS Harris, I'm also seeing a lot of those irritating "feedback" boxes so it's kind of a double whammy for me!
