Google’s New Pop Up Penalty
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome back, Rankers! Another announcement from Google at the end of last week. If you are using interstitial ads, pop-ups, those sorts of things. I’ll show you what I mean below. It’s from a search I’ve done for Google interstitials on mobile.
If I go to this story that was published by Search Engine Watch last week. Now an interstitial on mobile is like a pop-up if you will. Everyone is used to seeing them. Usually they’re used to build your mailing list, or newsletter, where you might be offering something free, get the latest industry tips to your inbox, those sorts of things. It’s a technique we use.
Pop-Up Punishment
Google is now saying that it is a very bad experience for a user when that happens. Therefore, as of next year, Google is going to start punishing sites for doing this. You will receive a penalty for doing this on mobile. There’s a good reason for them doing it, and that’s because they’re correct in saying it creates a crap experience for mobile users. You often have to get out the magnifying glass to find the spot where you can remove the ad.
There is another interesting point. If I go back to the first result of the search, it is for developers creating interstitial ads for the Google Adwords network with instructions on how to do that for apps. So Google is doing interstitial ads in their apps, but they are saying that having a pop-up is okay as long as it is limited to a smaller ad at the top of the page, usually found when advertising apps. Forbes, for example, normally shows you a full-screen ad before you are forwarded to the main content. I’ve been here before, so I’m only being shown the small top-screen ad for their app. It creates a bad user experience on mobile, so Google is saying not to do it anymore.
Do as I Say, Not as I Do
The fact that Google is saying it’s acceptable for their own network to do it but not for your site to do it, is the bit I don’t understand. I don’t understand why it’s okay to have an interstitial ad inside an app but not okay to have it on a website. Reading the interstitial rules for developers on Google Adwords, it states that if you use an interstitial ad at a spot during the user experience, where there may be a gap in the experience, say where one part ends before the next begins, that is a good place for an ad.
I just don’t understand why that doesn’t apply to someone’s website and why you can’t have an interstitial on your website. For my part, filling out a form on a mobile is a pain in the bum because I wear glasses, and I can’t pinch-zoom, ironically if the site is mobile optimised. If you are someone that uses reading glasses, do you miss pinch-zoom if the site is now mobile friendly? I do.
Google is saying their ads are fine for the mobile experience, but it’s not fine when you do it to encourage more people to sign up to your newsletter. So I think we are going to see some innovative developments in this space. I think little pop-ups with a Yes/No approach but not ones that cover the entire real estate on the screen. So Google is even saying anything that delays the user from seeing the main page, such as the one found at ProBlogger.net. which is called an inline pop-up.
So that’s now not acceptable to Google. Anything that stops the user from reaching the piece of content on the page that they found in search. So you can still do tiny pop-ups at the top of the screen, but you can’t do ones that cover everything.
Hopefully that’s helpful. I’ll see you next week. Bye.
Jim’s been here for a while, you know who he is.
