{"id":1623,"date":"2016-08-24T11:58:32","date_gmt":"2016-08-24T11:58:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/08\/24\/google-to-penalize-annoying-mobile-interstitials\/"},"modified":"2020-02-25T17:31:54","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T17:31:54","slug":"google-to-penalize-annoying-mobile-interstitials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/08\/24\/google-to-penalize-annoying-mobile-interstitials\/","title":{"rendered":"Google to penalize annoying mobile interstitials"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Last year, Google unleashed <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/03\/17\/its-mobilegeddon-hot-in-here-google-strengthens-its-mobile-friendly-ranking-signal\/\">Mobilegeddon<\/a> on the world in an effort to make the web more accessible\u00a0by\u00a0favoring mobile-friendly sites in the mobile SERPs.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Now, <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2019\/04\/25\/whats-it-like-using-duckduckgo-in-2019\/\">Google<\/a> is upping the ante by taking aim at sites that use\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/sew\/news\/2438826\/app-interstitial-ads-what-google-s-crackdown-means-to-you\">intrusive interstitials<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Starting January 10, 2017, <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2019\/07\/18\/how-to-set-up-google-analytics-annotations-to-show-google-updates\/\">Google<\/a> will update its algorithm so that sites &#8220;where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In a post on the Official <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2019\/07\/12\/how-to-get-featured-snippets-no-link-building\/\">Google<\/a> Webmaster Central blog,\u00a0Google Product Manager Doantam Phan\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/webmasters.googleblog.com\/2016\/08\/helping-users-easily-access-content-on.html\">provided<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2019\/03\/12\/robots-txt-best-practice-guide-and-examples\/\">examples<\/a> of techniques that <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2020\/01\/02\/quantum-supremacy-and-eight-seo-trends-2020\/\">Google<\/a> isn&#8217;t a fan of:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>Showing a popup that covers the main content, either immediately after the user navigates to a page from the search results, or while they are looking through the page.<\/li>\n<li>Displaying a standalone interstitial that the user has to dismiss before accessing the main content.<\/li>\n<li>Using a layout where the above-the-fold portion of the page appears similar to a standalone interstitial, but the original content has been inlined underneath the fold.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-63578 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2016\/08\/annoying-interstitials.png\" alt=\"annoying interstitials\" width=\"800\" height=\"754\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Some\u00a0common techniques\u00a0won&#8217;t be penalized. These include\u00a0legal notices, login dialogs on password-protected\u00a0sites, and banners that don&#8217;t take up too much screen real estate and can be dismissed easily.<\/p>\n<h2>Reactions show rift between users and publishers<\/h2>\n<p>Not surprisingly, many cheered\u00a0Google&#8217;s announcement, hoping that it will help bring about an end to tactics that frequently annoy end <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2018\/12\/21\/guide-google-analytics-confusing-terms\/\">users<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But not everyone is\u00a0thrilled. Rafat Ali, the founder of travel news site\u00a0Skift, remarked on Twitter that &#8220;Now Google wants to define how publishers run our audience acquisition strategies. Will hurt email newsletters most.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While he noted that the\u00a0popup his site uses to\u00a0invites readers to sign up for an email newsletter doesn&#8217;t appear on the first page\u00a0a reader visits and therefore believes &#8220;we&#8217;re insulated for most part,&#8221; he also\u00a0had some choice words for Google.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Now Google wants to define how publishers run our audience acquisition strategies. Will hurt email newsletters most. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ZWXzws0Veq\">https:\/\/t.co\/ZWXzws0Veq<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Rafat Ali (@rafat) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rafat\/status\/768188628451389440\">August 23, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Obviously, publishers will want to monitor Google&#8217;s update carefully, lest they find themselves penalized.<\/p>\n<p>But\u00a0Google&#8217;s Phan\u00a0noted that &#8220;this new signal is just one of hundreds of signals that are used in ranking&#8221; and added, &#8220;the intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That suggests the penalty might not be significant, or won&#8217;t\u00a0affect some publishers as much as others, so publishers will need to wait until next year to see how this update pans out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year, Google unleashed Mobilegeddon on the world in an effort to make the web more accessible by favoring mobile-friendly sites in the mobile SERPs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1092,"featured_media":1624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,11],"tags":[659,822,529,1324,1050],"content_type":[27095],"class_list":["post-1623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","category-more-news","tag-google-ranking-signals","tag-mobile-advertising","tag-mobile-friendly","tag-mobile-interstitials","tag-mobilegeddon","content_type-news"],"acf":{"tad_independentcommercial":false,"tad_content_format":false},"post_info":{"name":"idris.nagri@blenheimchalcot.com idris.nagri@blenheimchalcot.com","title":"","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-08-24-at-11.56.05-120x90.png","category":"Mobile","timeago":"9y"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1092"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1623"},{"taxonomy":"content_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content_type?post=1623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}