Google is going to be cracking down on sites that have pop-up ads it considers intrusive starting from next year.
From January 1, 2017, Google says it will start punishing sites that have intrusive popups or interstitials on mobile devices. According to the tech company, this is aimed at improving the mobile search experience.
"Pages that show intrusive interstitials provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible. This can be problematic on mobile devices where screens are often smaller. To improve the mobile search experience, after January 10, 2017, pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly," says Google.
Here are some of the things Google says can make content less accessible to a user:
- Showing a pop-up ad that covers the main content, either immediately after the user opens the page from search results, or while they are looking through the page.
- Displaying a standalone interstitial which the user has to dismiss before they can access the main content.
- Using a layout where the above-the-fold section of the page appears just like a standalone interstitial, but with the original content has been inlined underneath the fold.
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In comparison, Google also lists some examples of techniques that, if used responsibly, would not be affected by the new pop-up ad rule:
- Interstitials that seem to be in response to a legal obligation, such as for cookie usage or age verification purposes.
- Login dialog on a site where the content is not publicly indexable. An example is private content such as email or content that is behind a paywall.
- Banners that utilize a reasonable amount of screen space and can be easily dismissed. An example of this would be app install banners provided by Safari and Chrome.
So how can you fix it if you have such ads on your site? Here's how:
- You can turn off pop-ups for mobile devices by simply adjusting the pop-up options in your settings.
- You can also make your pop-ups smarter by targeting people exiting your site or trigger pop-ups based on things like time on page or site, number of page views, past behaviour, and click to trigger.