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Has anyone ever tested to see if having an ads.txt file provided any SEO lift?
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I know that the ads.txt system is designed to prevent ad fraud and technically has nothing to do with search.
That said, the presence of such a file would seem to be an indicator of overall site quality because it would show that a site owner wants to participate in a fraud-free system.
Has anyone ever tested that? If so, they don't seem to have published their results. Maybe it's a secret weapon that some pros are using and not sharing?
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Martijn,
I shouldn't have called it a "secret weapon" because an ads.txt file is public.
My question is really that given that Google looks at everything, it would be surprising if the search algos didn't check to see if there's an ads.txt file on the site, and give that some weight.
Anyone else looked at this or tested it?
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Hi Scott, Interesting line of thought I must say, but unfortunately ads.txt is not a factor as there are also tons of sites out there that don't participate at all in using ads or anything of that nature that then immediately would be facing negative consequences of not using this file. I've worked for some sites that had this file up but first of all: the change that you make would be so small to dedicate just to that file that it would never ever be able to call itself a secret weapon in my opinion.
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