Does Adsense Optimization Hurt Linkability?

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Aaron Wall (of SEOBook.com) was kind enough to share his thoughts on my post about the Killer Four Column Layout Strategy. He asked me, “Do you think being that aggressive with ad placement hurts the ability of sites to gain inbound links?”

That question caught me off-guard because I didn’t think the KFCLS was aggressive at all. That got me thinking–at what point does an otherwise decent blog become too off-putting due to ad placement as to become “unlinkable“? From my point of view, I thought that the KFCLS was very manageable and well balanced the desire of the blog publisher to both create decent content and monetize his site through selling advertising space.

I didn’t think the KFCLS was any more aggressive than what I’m seeing nowadays with multiple Adsense placements above the fold. In fact, I thought the key for the alternating ad placement unique to the KFCLS was that it tracked how people naturally read on a page like that. For example, they start reading the post on the right then their eyes naturally move to the left box, which contains the ad. Then, ignoring the ad bar going the width of the middle two columns, their eyes go to the post on the bottom left and then to the box on the right, and so on. The ad bar isn’t such a big deal and can be removed without too much effect but I had put it in because we were allowed 3 ad units and that was a logical spot.

I posted the article because I wanted people to think about how design and layout can implicate ad earnings more than they realize–it isn’t just about placing ads “above the fold” and following other Adsense presentation dogma. Really think outside of the box by designing a truly unique one-of-a-kind site and then guestimating how readers might read a web page based on its layout.  Finally, put the ads “in front” of them at the right time when they are ready to click.

At the same time, Aaron’s warning about overdoing it and therefore making the site repulsive needs to be also kept in mind. But then again, I’m sure there are designers out there who can implement this layout (and others that optimize ad placement) in an elegant and useful manner so as not to insult the reader. And the ability to strike a balance between profitability and usefulness to the reader is the difference between a profitable, useful and linkable blog, and a made-for-Adsense website based on templates many Internet marketers are hawking.