In
mid-August Google announced that they would begin penalizing sites
that used popup ads (what they call “intrusive interstitials”)
beginning in January, 2017.
If
you own or manage a WordPress site that uses one of the 1000s of
plugins that creates automatic popups, you MUST be aware of this.
Your site’s ranking will be effected by these new rules/algorithms.
(Non-WordPress sites will also be effected).
Google
has identified three kinds of popups they will begin penalizing sites
for using/displaying.
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First are popups that cover the main content of the page when a user arrives at that page by clicking on a link from a search result. This includes popups that are immediate, show up as the user scrolls down the page, or popups that show up as you try to navigate away from the page.
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Popups that are ‘stand-alone’ and must be dismissed before the content can be viewed. You know, those annoying popups that cover the whole page and have a countdown timer forcing you to view the ad.
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And finally, popup ads that act/look like they are the above-the-fold content of the page. These are the ads that take up the entire viewable area of the window and slide away quickly as you begin to scroll.
Examples
of these popups will include promotions, membership offers,
newsletter signups, coupons, and advertisements.
Exceptions
to these rules will be popups that cover legal information – like
those messages on sites originating in Europe that warn you that
cookies are in use, login popups, and verification popups – think
age verification on alcohol websites.
Why
is Google doing this? Well, Google has been pushing for more mobile
friendly sites for a while now. Last year they updated their search
algorithms to favor sites that were mobile friendly – basically
ranking mobile friendly sites above their ‘peers’ that were not
responsive/mobile friendly. Popups that cover content are (annoying, yes) not considered mobile friendly.
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