Google is ok with Adsense hurting your rankings?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Moultano, who claims to be a Google employee, posted the following about adsense on Hacker News - [news.ycombinator.com...]

In principle we're ok having the presence of adsense hurt a site's ranking. We just aren't ok with it helping.

Has anyone done some A/B testing recently to see if removing adsense helps a sites search rankings?

[incrediBILL]

That's not what he means, AdSense isn't trying to hurt a site, very doubtful it would. They just don't want AdSense to give a site an edge, but it's OK if it doesn't. Basically, they won't want sites floating higher in the SERPs just because you include AdSense.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

He explicitly says Google is ok with adsense hurting a sites ranking, I don't see how he could mean anything else. I understand the adsense not helping part but he clearly says it's ok if it hurts.

I'm not saying adsense hurts but the possibility is there apparently. I'd be interested in hearing about test results at this point.

[indyank]

The only thing it can hurt is the page load speed.Obviously a lot of people had already complained about how google ads slow their pages.

But i don't think that this can have a noticeable effect on the search engine ranking like doing a A/B testing with and without adsense to find how it hurts the ranking.

[denisl]

Let's face it, when we are visiting sites, we don't like to see them plastered with adverts and would probaly prefer not to see them at all.

If adverts can harm the visitor experience it may harm how SE's see them also - I think that is what he meant. But he wasn't saying that Adsense will always harm ranking

[netmeg]

If your site is 80% ads and 20% content, navigation, header and footer, then I'd just as soon you rank below me, thanks.

then I only have to worry about 30% or so content, ork ork