Tightening the iron fist

Google will begin penalizing advertisers whose landing pages take a long time to load, reports CNET.

A post on its AdWords Blog reports Google will start looking at the length of time it takes for a landing page to load. Loading speed will contribute to an advertiser's ultimate ad position and bid price on the Adwords platform.

The inclusion of pageload time into price and position determination follows findings that slow-loading pages are more likely to be abandoned by people who click on ads. Re-directs, slow servers and other barriers to instant gratification lead to a poor user experience.

Pageload time will be reviewed over the next few weeks, at which point advertisers with slow pages will be notified so they can make changes.

30 days following notification, load times will become an official part of their ad positioning.