Google Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrusive Pop-up Ads

Traffic from mobile internet browsing has increased significantly over the past few years due to more and more people using their smartphone to access websites but this has also resulted in more and more mobile-tailored ads that routinely make browsing on a smaller screen a more frustrating endeavor than on a desktop. Google is set to take action to minimize such intrusions on mobile devices by penalizing websites detected to contain such intrusive ads through their search engine rankings. This was announced all the way back in August 2016, but the new algorithm update went online on January 10th.

Google specifically cites three examples which they deem are problematic which the new algorithm seeks out:

1. Pages that show a pop-up that opens right after a user clicks a link or as they scroll through a page, hiding the page’s content.
2. Interstitial ads that must be closed out before the user gets to the desired content.
3. Pages that keep content underneath with an interstitial on the top of the page.

In summary, basically any website that tries to withhold, hide or delay content as well as websites that force ad interaction will see their Google page ranking tumble down considerably. Google points out that sites with small pop-ups are not affected although they have not revealed exactly how small those ads can be. The penalty also only applies on the first click from Google and does not affect a website’s rankings if the obtrusive ads are encountered following another external link.

“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.” Google explains.