Talk about something being LONG over due! Google is about to deal a blow to (in my opinion) the most annoying ads on the net, pop-up and interstitial ads on mobile sites. Now I’m just taking a guess but I can’t be the only person who is extremely happy these annoyances are finally going the way of the Dodo. Google is making a call that mobile sites that are currently using the “Mosquitoes of internet ads” provide a worse user experience and are now finally starting to rank them lower because of it.
Google is run by people just like you and I so they know just how irritating these can be to users, which is why they’ve finally decided to do something about it. Google announced that as most mobile sites using these ads offer a poorer experience, their rankings should be penalized in the mobile search results. — THANK YOU!
The change, due to come into effect on January 10, 2017 (in my opinion is not soon enough), is just one of the two changes being brought in by Google. The other change is the dropping of its “mobile-friendly” label used to identify pages that are optimized for smartphones.
Of course mobile sites that Google classes as suitable for mobile will continue to rank higher in the search results, but now 85% of sites meet the mobile-friendly criteria, so Google decided it’s no longer necessary to label them.
Google’s upcoming policy change on sites that use these pop-ups will hopefully see their use diminish over the next couple of months.
Google points out that the new signal is just one of hundreds that are used in rankings. And while using “interstitial ads” could affect a website’s position, if a site with a pop-up still has the best, relevant information, it’s still likely to appear first. But this change ought to benefit one mobile site over another when those two sites appear roughly equal otherwise.
Ads that are Acceptable to use on Mobile Sites
For the most part, Google is targeting ads that cover then content beneath them to prevent you from reading the site, some ads will just appear for a few seconds or until you find and carefully tap a little X to close them. These ads count regardless of whether they load immediately after a page is opened or whether they appear after scrolling down the page. In addition it sounds like Google will also count ads that create the effect of a pop-up without actually being a pop-up, by taking up most of the page after a site is loaded. All other banner and text ads are still acceptable.
Affiliates and businesses using these ads are likely to be unhappy about this new policy, as it’s liable to take away either visitors, ad revenue, or sales. I supposed it’s fair to question whether Google should be the one to dictate when ads are and are not acceptable. But with that being said, their intentions seem to be reasonable. These ads tend to give a website a worse user experience, and Google is going to start treating them that way.
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