iFrame Ads

  • Resolved ma2018

    (@mef4755)


    6 years, 7 months ago

    Hi Thomas,

    thanks for offering free tips this week.

    I am totally new to ads and decided to look into Amazon affiliate banners first. They are iframe-based, which look nice to me, but when I place them in the sidebar in a plain HTML widget they knock off 10 points from my PageSpeed Insights score (from 89 to 79-ish). Could this affect Google ranking to some extent? Obviously the page loading feels a bit slower too…

    Maybe this issue has been addressed already in the past in this forum, but couldn’t find it. It seems to me like a pretty serious show-stopper before I even start looking into more advanced features like the ones in Advanced Ads.
    Hence my questions are:
    – are these iframe banners bad for performance in general? and for SEO? Better to stay away from them then?
    – is there a strategy that can be used to improve the performance of these ads? (delayed loading of the ads perhaps?)

    I searched google for a solution but couldn’t find an easy one (i.e., without resorting to complex javascript tricks…).

    Thanks,

    Marco

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  • Plugin Author Thomas Maier

    (@webzunft)

    Hi Marco,

    welcome to the world of ads!

    You are raising an interesting question and one that is not easy to answer as well.

    Most ad networks load their ads in iframes, AdSense included. Google (search) knows that and unless those ads slow down your site significantly or break its usability, I wouldn’t worry too much.

    Loading external scripts and resources, which is basically what ad networks do, is always decreasing performance scores. I personally believe that those scores are taken more seriously than their impact really is. Having too many ads and maybe different networks loading at the same time can have an impact, but there is no linear connection between page speed and ranking.

    If you could, however, locally hosted ads can always be much faster than loading external resources. The question is if that is practical for you. If a static affiliate link works as well for you as a full banner loaded from Amazon then go for it.

    I hope this helps.

    Thomas

    Thread Starter ma2018

    (@mef4755)

    Thanks for you quick response, Thomas!

    In case of Amazon’s Associates program one of the participation requirements is that “You will promptly remove from your site and delete or otherwise destroy any Content that is no longer displayed on the Amazon Site or that we notify you is no longer available for your use.”

    I think that requirement makes hosting Amazon banners locally a burden, since one would have to periodically check consistency with Amazon’s main site.

    Basic static affiliate links are fine, but need to be used appropriately for the best results. Dynamic banners look nice and are simple instead… ??

    Thanks,

    Marco

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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