Google Finally Starts Penalizing Mobile Websites Running Pop-Up Ads

Everyone wants to surf the internet without any unnecessary interruption. However nowadays companies are paying a lot of money to gain publicity over the internet using unwanted ads and interstitials (which are ad popups masquerading as a new browser window).

If you hate these intrusive elements while browsing the internet on your handheld gadgets, computer system or any other device, the good news is that Google’s penalties mean that many websites will have to get their act together or risk becoming irrelevant.

The search giant has announced that the new update for its algorithm that targets popups is live.

Pages That Are Affected By Google’s Penalties

Google gave three particular examples of pages that would be affected by its new algorithm:

• Pages that give user a pop up right after they click a hyperlink or as they scroll through a page (ads which are hiding the page’s content).
• Pages that shows the user with an interstitial that must be shut before the user gets to their preferred content,
• pages that keep the desired content “under the fold” with an interstitial on the top of the page.

Google has claimed that “small” pop ups won’t be affected by these updated algorithm, but they didn’t give any specific details about how ad sizes will be classified as small or big.

Google doesn’t support the unwanted pop-ups just like all the internet users, In short, if a web page deliberately hides content behind an ad or forces the users to have an interaction with one, Google will consider them. For now, these changes only apply to mobile versions of a site.

Of course, there are always some warnings. The new regulation is applicable only to the first click on a page from Google. Once the user is on a web page, there are no drawbacks if they encounter the ads following another link. Also, Google will not down-rate the webpages which use the legally allowed popup prompts e.g. those needed to verify age, to confirm user is not a robot or the authentication pop-ups.

Clarifying their position, Google released a statement saying:

“Although the majority of pages now have text and content on the page that is readable without zooming, we’ve recently seen many examples where these pages show intrusive interstitials to users.

While the underlying content is present on the page and available to be indexed by Google, content may be visually obscured by an interstitial. This can frustrate users because they are unable to easily access the content that they were expecting when they tapped on the search result.”

These new rules have been implemented already but so far there are no rumors of extensive effects yet. Perhaps this is because Google did give a substantial warning period for people to adjust their web sites or risk being penalized.

Web pages for sure need ads to operate with profit, but enforced interactions with any kind of content can be a pretty unsatisfying user experience, so it’s very comforting to see Google taking a stand here.

Via Scriblrs