Pop Ups Are Hated By Visitors and Google Alike
As of January 10th, 2017 Google is to penalise websites that feature intrusive pop-up adverts by It is updating the algorithms used to rank keywords in SERPs so that offending pages are more likely to be dropped down the Search Engine Results pages.
I Leave Every Website With a Pop Up
- No, you’re not having my email address
- No, I don’t want exciting offers in my inbox
- No, you are not sending me a monthly newsletter selling me something I’ve most likely bought already
Personally I hate these kind of websites, many of my clients say “Well, I’ve got 200 email sign ups a month! It works!” and as a Marketer I ask the all-important question “Tell me how many of your email database have converted into cold hard cash, how much revenue do your email newsletters generate? Can you attribute any of those transactions to the popups?” and that’s where lack of conversion tracking and data mining can make a difference to the bottom line.
The Internet Welcomes This Decision by Google
On the Google Wemasters Blog the company stated:
“Pages that show intrusive interstitials [elements that cover the content] provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible,”
Here are some examples of techniques that make content less accessible to a user:
- 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.
- Displaying a standalone interstitial that the user has to dismiss before accessing the main content.
- 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.
Google’s Ranking Signals
Remember, this new signal is just one of over 200 signals that are used in ranking. 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.