How to Tell Google to Ignore Text

When creating content for a website, Google scans every piece of text that’s both visible and hidden -- as in cloaked -- to your readers. While you cannot tell GoogleBot to ignore text on a page, you do have the option of telling Google AdSense to ignore text. Advising AdSense to ignore certain portions of text on your site gives you an opportunity to better target ads.

Instructions

1. Determine the content you wish to hide, and open an HTML editor to view the HTML code for the desired portion of the site. If you’re running a blog, most major blog software allows you to switch between HTML and visual format from the page you’re editing.

2. Write <!-- google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) --> above the section of text you want Google AdSense to ignore. The tag tells AdSense that the text immediately following should be ignored.

3. Add “<!-- google_ad_section_end -->” without quotations below the final portion of text you wish to ignore. After saving and implementing the code, Google AdSense will now ignore those portions of text. The end tag tells AdSense to read the remaining text.

Tips & Warnings

• The method for which you must tell AdSense to ignore text does not work for GoogleBot. If you have text you do not want the GoogleBot to read, turn the text into an image.

• If you tell AdSense to ignore the majority of your content and focus on text that does not focus on the topic of your content, Google can penalize you for exploiting the system.

References

• Google: What is Section Targeting and How Do I Implement it?