There’s an old saying in SEO that, “Google loves ugly”. This doesn’t literally mean that Google loves ugly websites; it’s just a general statement that Google favors websites with deep, rich content, no matter that they look like. Well, apparently Google also doesn’t want you to scroll very far to find that content. A recent tweet by Google’s Matt Cutts revealed that the search engine giant has released a recent page layout algorithm update, which will punish websites that feature too many ads, or not enough content above the fold.

According to a past Google search blog entry, which was referenced by Cutts, “we’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away.”

To combat this, websites which are considered, “top heavy”, and don’t feature a lot of content above the fold have been demoted in search results. This can typically be attributed to websites that feature a plethora of ads above the fold.

Matt Cutts noted that this update was released to the public on February 6^th. Therefore, we still don’t know how many search queries were affected by this change. One thing that is for certain is that content is most definitely king. Not only do you need to have an abundance helpful content; you also need to make that content easily accessible for visitors.

How do you recover if you were hit by this update?

• Make sure you have plenty of rich, meaningful content.
• Remove some ads, if you feel you have too many of them above the fold.
• Move your content so it’s above the fold, and make sure it’s easily accessible to visitors