Tag: above the fold

Browser Size Tool Comes To Google Analytics, Lets You Analyze “Above The Fold”

Google announced the launch of the Browser Size analysis tool in Google Analytics, under the In-Page Analytics report. The tool shades the portions of a page that are “below the fold,” and shows you what percentage of users are seeing how much of the page.

“What is actually ‘above the fold’ on a web page is a significant factor to conversion rates,” says Gaal Yahas from Google’s Analytics team. “If visitors have to scroll to see an ‘add to cart’ button, or some other critical element, they may never get around to it. Analyzing the percentage of visitors for whom page elements fall beneath the fold or off to one side is difficult, so we’ve created a visualization that lets you quickly determine which portions of your page are visible to which percentages of visitors.”

This may prove to be a helpful SEO tool, as well, considering Google’s recent “Above the Fold” algrorithm update, which penalizes pages with too many ads above the fold. In January, Google’s Matt Cutts wrote, “We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content. This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page. This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads.”

In fact, in that post on Google’s Webmaster Central blog, Google suggested using the Browser Size tool, which at that point was just part of Google Labs. That version will be sunsetting in a month, and you’ll have to use Google Analytics.

This seems to be becoming a trend with site optimization tools from Google. Google’s just building them into Google Analytics. Last week, Google announced the addition of Content Experiments in Google Analytics, which is taking the place of Google’s Website Optimizer:

Both the Browser Size tool and the Content Experiments tool are rolling out to Google Analytics users over the next few weeks.

June 4, 2012
Matt Cutts Offers ‘Above the Fold’ Clarification

When Google announced their algorithm change to penalize sites using too many ads, ones that appear above the fold, the first, if not only response was, “how much is too much?”

The first, best answer is, thanks to some clarification offered by Google’s Matt Cutts — during a Google hangout/video chat session — it’s not a numbers game. Google hasn’t written their algorithm to punish sites with, say, 20 ads above the fold, as opposed to the site owner who only has 19 showing. No, from the Cutts/Google perspective, the algorithm alteration inspects pages to see how the space, especially above the fold, is being used.

In fact, Google isn’t concerned about the number of ads at all. Instead, they just don’t want these ads — however many are appearing above the fold — taking up too much space. Because of the information was given during a Google+ Hangout session, as of this time, there isn’t any video of it to post, although Cutts indicates if the video passes the quality control inspection, he may make it available to the public.

However, there are some important details discussing how Google determines if your site is making good use of its space, or not. The information was previously posted at the WebProNews Google+ page. To demonstrate his point, Cutts turned to visual aids:

…Cutts actually took two yellow stickies and put them on the top of a standard 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper and indicated that even if this space was just one big ad it is too much and could be impacted by Google’s new algorithm change.

As you can see, it’s size, not quantity Google’s watching for. Does this mean you can stick hundreds of ads above the fold, as long as they don’t infringe on the content’s real estate? It’s not something any SEO team worth their salt would recommend, however, with Google’s alteration, how you use your site’s space is just as important as the amount of ads used to fill these spaces.

In previous articles discussing Google’s algorithm changes, sometimes, reaction comes to us in the form of “Google is trying to play God,” or at least, determining how people’s site should look. Some site owners are disillusioned about Google’s apparent attempt to control the look and feel of the web, at least in relation to ad placement. With that in mind, it’s important to remember these rules only apply if you are concerned about being in Google’s search index.

If that’s not a concern of yours, put as many ads in as many spaces as you want. If, however, you do want your site to be apart of Google’s potential search results, it would be prudent to follow Google’s suggestions. Besides, it’s important to consider potential site visitors as well. It’s not a pleasant visit if visitors have to sift through poorly placed ads just to find the content that triggered the search engine result.

January 25, 2012
Google’s Algorithm Testing Raises Questions About “Above the Fold”

At PubCon in Las Vegas, Google’s Matt Cutts and Amit Singhal held a webmaster Q&A session with attendees, and referenced (among many other things) some algorithm testing that they’re doing, which we may see the results of in 2012. This involves Google’s algorithm examining what appears “above the fold” on a content page, and more specifically, what appears in the way of ads.

What is acceptable to have above content on a page? Tell us what you think.

As we discuss this, it’s important to keep in mind that as of right now, this is something Google is testing. There hasn’t actually been an update roll-out of this nature to my knowledge, so the effects would not necessarily have been felt by “infringing” sites yet, but from the sound of it, it’s coming.

As far as what actually happens in terms of fallout, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but this is still something site owners and webmasters should be thinking about and possibly preparing for.

Now, this concept of ad-to-content ratio is not new, and it has in fact been a topic of discussion surrounding the controversial Panda update (which Google calls “a positive change across all of its known measurements,” by the way). In fact, following the Panda update, Google (Singhal himself actually) came out with a list of questions that “step into Google’s mindset,” as to how they’re looking at the issue of quality.

On that list is: “Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?”

At PubCon, Cutts is quoted as saying, “If you have ads obscuring your content, you might want to think about it…Do they see content or something else that’s distracting or annoying?” and that they’re testing algorithms that determine ”what are the things that really matter, how much content is above the fold.”

Now that part about “what are the things that really matter” could certainly apply to things beyond ads, and this in itself raises a lot of questions.

Here are some questions the whole discussion raises. Some of the answers may become clearer in time, and others webmasters will no doubt be left to speculate upon (feel free to contribute your thoughts in the comments).

Questions:

– Is “above the fold” determined solely by sizes elements of the design?

Screen size has an influence on this. Google did say that mobile (along with social) is the future. It’s certainly going to be a good idea (as it already is) to keep the small screen in mind.

– Is Google going to specifically look at the size of ads above the fold?

Look at EzineArticles, for example (one of the sites negatively impacted by the Panda update – granted, they’ve taken numerous steps to improve as a result). This article page has 7 ads above the actual content (the body). The top ones are very small in terms of space – just a few pieces of text. Even the ones that appear below the title aren’t enormous by ad standards, and technically are smaller than the 750-wide ad standard, but are they distracting to the content?

eHow is probably in better shape on the ad side of things (Demand Media also noted in on their earnings call the other day, by the way, that they were not impacted by Google’s recent “Freshness” update).

– Is Google looking at things like spacing above the fold?

If not, AdSense ads could be most heavily impacted by this, because of the small formats.

– If this is taken into account, how will it be impacted by mouseover pull-downs and things of this nature?

– Will Google run into false positives based on pull down menus and things (javascript, ajax, etc.) – on the page, counted as content above the fold?

Granted, Google says it is getting smarter at understanding the content on the page in this regard. But how smart?

– Will large images above the text hurt you, or is this counted as the content?

For example, many of our article pages will use a relevant image above the article. It’s just one of our templates that we’ve worked into our design:

– In a case like this, do headlines need to appear above the image?

– Will all of this effectively enable Google to really determine webmasters’ sites’ designs to some extent?

It can be very hard for a business to thrive online and not be visible in Google, so businesses will (and already do sometimes, for that matter) feel obligated to make sure their design is pleasing enough to Google to avoid being lost in the search results.

– Will webmasters bow down to everything google ever says?

Please feel free to weigh in on any of these, and share what you think of the direction Google is headed in, in the comments section.

Top image credit: Mike Souza (via Flickr).

November 10, 2011