The Myth That Just Won’t Die

[Updated 2018: AdWords is now Google Ads.]

Does participating in Google Ads (Google’s Pay Per Click or PPC program) help your non-PPC rankings?

The corollary to that is the question:

Does Google punish sites that don’t pay them for for Google Ads by lowering their rankings, thus encouraging participation in Ads where Google makes money?

The Answer is No.

The answer is No.  Always has been and always will.  The simple reason is that doing this would reduce the relevance of Google’s main organic rankings.  Consequently, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, or another search engine would unseat them as the Big Dog of search.

More savvy searchers typically skip over the PPC ads because they understand the sponsored links up top aren’t there because they’re the most relevant match for your search.  Those top-ranking PPC links are there largely because the advertiser is willing to pay more than others for your click.

A blog post over at WSI said it well:

Doing AdWords does NOT directly help or effect rankings.  Integrity in this area is a cornerstone of Google’s business. If this were violated it would damage Google beyond repair, not to mention a slew of legal actions.  Google would never risk those consequences.  Google has stated over and over that AdWords advertising will not affect rankings.  I don’t always believe Google but….

I have been managing Adwords and doing search engine optimization for my clients for many years.  I have managed every combination of clients that do or don’t do AdWords combined with SEO.  There have also been cases where SEO clients stop doing AdWords, or start doing AdWords.  I can say that I have never seen anything that indicated that AdWords affected rankings.

There are a number of reputable SEO research firms that study this issue and every one of them has come to the same conclusion: AdWords does not affect rankings.

My experience is completely in agreement with that assessment.

There’s a place for Google Ads, of course.  And it’s true that if you show up in both the ads and the organic results on the first page it super-validates you as a site that searchers will want to click on first.  But Google Ads itself has no impact on how highly you rank in the organic results.

Bottom Line: Google Ads won’t help your organic rankings. Only SEO can do that.

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