How are you all dealing with "Core Web Vitals" and Adsense?

[westcoast]

So you've probably heard that Google is soon going to take into account Core Web Vitals such as shifting elements, time to load, etc etc... into the core ranking algorithms. (if they don't already do so to some extent...).

The use of responsive Adsense immediately throws all of those metrics into the red zone. It's ridiculous. Google webmaster console reports that every page with Adsense ads on my site fails the "core web vitals" tests. When I remove the ads, the pages immediately go into "excellent" territory.

In other words, Google intends on penalizing me for running... Google ads. You can't make this stuff up.

Does anyone else have this concern? If so, what are you doing about it? If you are like us, you have been algorithmically beaten up and penalized in every sort of manner over the past 10 years, and it looks like there is another hammer about to come down on those running adsense.

[JorgeV]

Hello,

I do not have this problem, but I am controlling the size of ads with CSS, so the containers (place holder) have the final size right away.

In other words, Google intends on penalizing me for running... Google ads. You can't make this stuff up.

Google Search and Adsense are different entities. it's not because they are ran by Google, that it means they have to comply with each others.

[robzilla]

Google has always stressed that Search and AdSense operate independently. Obviously, both branches have different business goals.

You're not rewarded for running AdSense ads, and indeed they may work against you in some ways. But the same goes for any other ad network. After all, ads tend to slow down web pages, and most people would rather not see them. It's a balancing act that only you are responsible for. As with page speed previously, the effect here is likely minor, i.e. unless you're offering a terrible user experience, it's unlikely you'll get "hammered" for running AdSense ads. And as JorgeV notes, there are ways to reduce the impact of the ads on the user experience.

This is one reason why I don't let AdSense determine where ads are placed on my sites.

[matbennett]

Using AdSense definitely doesn't automatically throw all vitals into the red. It's another thing to make getting all green more difficult, but most adsense publishers that I see are not all red.

[CommandDork]

I'll wait and see. My legs are tired of jumping.

[robzilla]

PS: Search Console reports all URLs of my AdSense sites as "Good" (avg. 3 ads per page), so maybe you need to look at other causes. AdSense may simply be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

"Excellent" is not a Core Web Vitals score I'm aware of, but perhaps you're referring to a different tool there.

[JorgeV]

This is one reason why I don't let AdSense determine where ads are placed on my sites.

Indeed. If a publisher turns ON auto ad placements, he is screwed :)

[tangor]

Observing from afar ... g has done this kind of thing too many times in the past to make me play hoppy toad.

[riccarbi]

I'm pretty sure that the Core Web Vitals testing tool completely disables AdSense, including auto ads.
I wouldn't get zero CLS issues otherwise, since I can easily tell that running auto ads clearly causes an enormous Content Layout Shift for every single page it is enabled on.
Furthermore, if you look at the small screenshots in the CWV result page, you can see that AdSense units are not loaded.
Therefore, if you are getting CLS issues, they are probably related to ad-container divs lacking the height property.

[Steven29]

"I'm pretty sure that the Core Web Vitals testing tool completely disables AdSense, including auto ads."

It does not, it's just the way most people are loading their sites, usually using Cloudflare's Rocket Loader and not loading ads until a set timeout after they receive the response from the browser the Google Tool is looking for.

"Look, I used their tool and it made me an A"

I hope and believe that the Web Core Vitals is taking this into consideration when using its metrics and one of the reasons they want real user experiences.

There are lots of websites using 8 ad units and because they have an A or B, think they are not having a poor user experience. It couldn't be further than the truth.

"Search Console reports all URLs of my AdSense sites as "Good" (avg. 3 ads per page), so maybe you need to look at other causes. AdSense may simply be the straw that breaks the camel's back."

Is this for Mobile and/or Desktop? Desktop I am able to use three units and keep a perfect score, Mobile is another story.

Since Google has enabled h3-Q050 protocol for Adsense, i've seen a huge improvement and it appears they have also been working on their javascript execution time. I see under 100 MS now, instead of up to 300 MS for each unit.

I think this is a good thing for the algorithm, as there are many ways to skin a cat and having many websites optimmized the exact same way will throw a huge fingerprint.

[riccarbi]

It does not, it's just the way most people are loading their sites, usually using Cloudflare's Rocket Loader and not loading ads until a set timeout after they receive the response from the browser the Google Tool is looking for.

So, do you really think that "most people are using Cloudflare's Rocket Loader" to load their sites? As far as I know, less than 1 out of 100,000 websites (0,001%) actually use Cloudflare... That's not "most people", isn't it?

[robzilla]

Furthermore, if you look at the small screenshots in the CWV result page, you can see that AdSense units are not loaded.

I assume you're referring the the PageSpeed Insights tool. Screenshots do include AdSense ads for me. I think Steven29's point was that you might not be seeing the ads show up because they may be delayed by a script or a service such as Cloudflare's Rocket Loader.

Is this for Mobile and/or Desktop? Desktop I am able to use three units and keep a perfect score, Mobile is another story.

That was desktop, admittedly. These sites aren't optimized for mobile because they cater mostly to a desktop audience, and as such Chrome User Experience Report does not even have sufficient real-world speed data.

running auto ads clearly causes an enormous Content Layout Shift for every single page it is enabled on.

Keep in mind that the Web Vitals data that'll be used in the algorithm doesn't come from testing tools, but directly from Chrome users.

[JorgeV]

Hello,

Furthermore, if you look at the small screenshots in the CWV result page, you can see that AdSense units are not loaded.

As said, Ads are loading asynchronously, it at the time the screen shot is taken, ads might not yet have been loaded.

Also, it can simply be because there was no inventory ! Adsense is not showing ads all the time.

[Steven29]

"So, do you really think that "most people are using Cloudflare's Rocket Loader" to load their sites? As far as I know, less than 1 out of 100,000 websites (0,001%) actually use Cloudflare... That's not "most people", isn't it?"

No, 1 out of 100,000 people isn't "most people" but that's now what i'm referring to. I think you have your numbers wrong, more than .001% of websites use cloudflare, unless your talking all of the inactive parked domains.. Let's see what i'm responding to:

Question:

"I'm pretty sure that the Core Web Vitals testing tool completely disables AdSense, including auto ads."

MY response:

"It does not, it's just the way most people are loading their sites, usually using Cloudflare's Rocket Loader and not loading ads until a set timeout after they receive the response from the browser the Google Tool is looking for."

He's asking a specific question about ads being blank when running a page speed test.

1. If the ads are blank, they are doing some type of optimization. Otherwise, the ads would load and it would render the page load time higher, as the tool does not just "stop" while it's loading more scripts

2. My experience the blank ads are caused by Rocket Loader and/or not loading ads until a set timeout after they receive the response from the browser the Google Tool is looking for. It's similar to the page load event.

So yes, if you are seeing a blank ad MOST PEOPLE will be either using rocket loader or delaying their script to render later on. Core Web Vitals does not disable Adsense.

RocketLoader to me seems to be the 1 click button script that satisfy's users because their website score has gone up and with their ignorance think with each additional unit that itn's not affecting the score so it's "optimized". That is not the truth.

In response to George, "Also, it can simply be because there was no inventory ! Adsense is not showing ads all the time."

I have not seen that experience lately since they removed the backup ads. I have seen "less" units with pages that should have 5 - 8 spots showing a blank spot.

Really the only time i've seen legitimate blank Adsense ads on the entire page is when it's a brand new page or very old page that hasn't received traffic in a while and the Adsense bot needs to visit it first.

[riccarbi]

Sorry, but many of your assumptions do not make much sense to me. Maybe it's my fault, dunno.

1) Since the ads are blank and the performance seems to be unaffected by having the ads enabled or not, I suspect that the Core Web Vitals testing tool simply disables or defers all Adsense units. Why? Possibly because to load them would impact on LCP and CLS so badly that this would make all the "web vitals" stuff nonsense.

2) I don't understand why you insist so much on Rocket Loader. I am checking MY websites with the Core Web Vitals testing tool on MY browser and I do not use Cloudflare and/or Rocket Loader for my websites/VPS, never used them. To say that RL has an impact on my CWV results It's a bit like saying that my car performances depend on what engine Boeing is mounting on the 787.

3) I very rarely see blank ads on my websites. My ad coverage has been over 92% for years now, and I repeat the CWV test several times for a single page. I deem it statistically impossible that I get every time only blank ads because there's nothing to show from the inventory.

It's completely possible that a lot of people are loading my pages using an ad-block utility of in "anonymous" browsing mode, but that's another matter that would have an impact on the Field Data report only. What I'm talking about is the Lab Data report. Maybe are you confusing Lab data with Field data in Google Search Console, or am I not understanding your point about Rocket Loader?

[robzilla]

I suspect that the Core Web Vitals testing tool simply disables or defers all Adsense units.

There's no such thing as "the Core Web Vitals testing tool". There are several tools [web.dev], each slightly different from the others, so it's important to note which tool you're using. If you're referring to PageSpeed Insights, as I've previously noted the screenshots provided by that tool for my websites do show AdSense ads. It wouldn't make sense for the tools to exclude the ads, because they certainly contribute to the CWV measurements in the real world. If you're not seeing ads in your screenshots, there's likely another (probably local) reason for that.

I don't think Steven29 was saying Rocket Loader is affecting your test results, but that the fact that you don't see the ads on your site suggests that it's possible that something like Rocket Loader is responsible for the ads being delayed until after the load event fires and the testing tool finishes. It could be a script on your site or something in your CMS, for example, or even your browser if you're using Lighthouse.

[Corum]

The difference between running Chrome Lighthouse (or GTmetrix) with Adblock 'on' vs Adblock 'off' is like night and day.

I get scores in the 90's across the board without ads.

Throw ads into the mix though, and I'm looking at failing grades across the board.

So what's the takeaway here? It looks to me like Sitespeed should be renamed "Adspeed".

My site is blazing fast, well-optimized and adheres to best practices.

Google ads on the other hand have tons of redirects, poor use of browser caching, render-blocking javascript, poorly scaled and optimized images, un-minified javascript, etc.

I'm not sure what the answer is here, but there's a very odd message being sent to publishers which is: Please optimize your sites for Google by removing anything and everything which comes from Google.

I can go 100% directly embedded affiliate offers and solve this problem tomorrow. Would it hurt my bottom line? Probably yeah. I run GAM for header bidding, with an Adsense fallback as do tens of thousands of other publishers.

But it wouldn't hurt my bottom line nearly as badly as a traffic loss.

So if I have to choose an option, I'll lose the ads and go pure affiliate.

[Corum]

Here's a comparison screenshot from GTmetrix which sums it all up:

Column 1 is without ads. Column 2 is with ads.

[imgur.com...]

It's pretty clear who needs to optimize... and it ain't me.

[robzilla]

So what's the takeaway here? It looks to me like Sitespeed should be renamed "Adspeed".

Obviously ads aren't the only thing that can impact page speed and the Core Web Vitals. In your case, ads do seem to be slowing the site down, but in other cases it may be poor coding, lack of image optimization, a slow server, heavy scripting, etc. The tools don't care what the cause is, that's your responsibility. But I would focus more on improving what's actually measured in the Web Vitals instead of focusing on YSlow and PageSpeed grades, which are just based on checklists of best practices that don't necessarily correspond to actual speed or a good user experience.

And let's not forget that the effect of CWV rolling into the search rankings is likely to be minor.

[Corum]

> Obviously ads aren't the only thing that can impact page speed and the Core Web Vitals.

Sure, but without ads I'm all green. With ads I'm all red.

There's not much more "focusing on core web vitals" anyone can do in that case. If Google measures CWV inclusive of third-party scripts, ad-monetized sites are poor performers. Period.

[robzilla]

Maybe there are still improvements to be made without the ads. Green is also a range after all.

Bad user experiences can usually be remedied, but in the end if you've done all you can and it's only the ads bringing you down, that's just a "loss" you have to accept. Removing the ads will probably result in more revenue losses than keeping them up and not getting a perfect CWV score ;-)