Since the Panda updates I've been reducing the number of ads on our sites and was wondering if anybody knew the answer to this quick question. Will Google look at the number of ads on a site, or the area of ads - or both? The reason I ask is because one of our sites uses 125 x 125 ads and I can take four of them and replace it with a single 250 x 250 ad instead but I'm not sure if there will be any benefit to this (from an SEO standpoint not conversion optimization).
well im not 100% sure but i will give you my experience with this topic. after last panda update my website dropped from #4 to like #8 and #9; offcourse i was motivated to bring it back and seems that by just gettin less ads on my homepage i managed to hop back into #5. So i suggest you keep your ads to a small number ( ofcourse i think here its prolly about the content/ads ratio ). Just my 2 cents.
Generally for ranking, the rule of thumb is to have a few good ads rather than a lot of ads. You'll get better rankings if your site has better content, and for content purposes ads are pretty much empty space. It's also about where you place the ads. As people read from left to right, you're best putting them on the left of the screen. Also, Google Adsense tends to terminate your account if you place more than three ads; so I would stick to that many and really emphasise the content.
yes google is looking at the number of ads. They devalue websites that have more ads than content....
