Now too many Ads get you penalized by Google

[benitez17]

That's not what's happening, it's not their whim, that's entirely the wrong way to view this. You're being affected by fallout from the spammers and Google's attempt to stay one step ahead of them. If people built 'proper' sites that didn't have a bunch of crap above the fold Google wouldn't have to start penalising those who do. And, if you don't do that, you'll be ok so no worries right? In fact you should be pleased because a bunch of your competition probably just got penalised.

Love or hate Google or have any kind of suspicions about them as a company it doesn't change that what I said above is true. You imagine that they like having to spend millions trying to stop people abusing their precious system and driving away Google users? Of course not, it's not their whim, it's a pain in the ass for them.

"This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree"

If you're going to be anti something here, be anti-spammers who are making your life harder.

So why isn't Google building pages that meet the standard they are holding others to?

[JJMcClure]

Whose adverts are they going to ban you for? If you have 4 ads on a page 3 google ones above the fold and 1 other below the fold will they ban you?

Yeah, straight away there are problems with that aren't there. Maybe it's not been done to remove competition then.

[crabfoot]

I noticed a while back that MFA sites with lowered advertising (only one or two units per page) were getting better G PR ratings than MFA sites with the max number per page. Since I'm trying to build "authority" rather than revenue at the moment, I'm happy with that - but there is another advantage to the approach.

If Adsense doesn't have many advertisers in your niche, you get off-target/untargeted ads in the "spaces that need filling".
With only one or two ad blocks, the ads have much more relevance to your traffic.

[cyanweb]

I've found it much more enjoyable to work for other people rather than having to dance attendance to every whim of G. It's more pleasant to get on with a job rather than have to run around like a headless chicken every time G changes its algo. I used to like having my own business, now I wonder if it's worth the effort. At least my employers don't change the goal posts every day.

I almost went for a new job with a largish company being their web-master / I.T. guru - thinking exactly the same thing! Though 10-minutes before sunset I decided to turn down the opportunity as I still have a lot of plans / ideas for sites and on-line services... and figured diversification and user loyalty are going to be key to staying self-employed