Google. Block stopper.

Last week, Google officially confirmed they’ve rolled out the search penalty for having intrusive interstitials on mobile sites. Handily, Google announced they would do this a while back, so we've had time to react as a wider industry.

As always, lots has already been written about what is and isn't acceptable. In summary:

• Cookie policy, age verification, login pop-ups, and smaller 'app install banners' would be OK if used responsibly.
• You will see an impact on your search visibility if you have a pop-up or generic message that either covers the main content of landing page which the user has to close before doing what they actually wanted to do, or alternatively pushes the main content much further below the fold.

Ultimately, I can't see an argument against this penalisation. These types of messages can be fairly annoying for people.

An example.

In the visual below, I want to buy some shoes. I search. I tap on my favourite shoe shop's search result. I want to look for a pair of shoes, but get a prompt to sign-up for an initial discount. Just show me some shoes.

Whilst we can't directly compare web and physical stores, I can't imagine walking into a shop down the high-street only to be stopped on the way to be asked for my address, before I've even had a change to peruse their products.

The gaps from measuring a single conversion.

Let's say you are a marketing manager running a trial on an incentive pop-up - You would probably measure the success of the trial via the number of sign-ups.

The trial was great. We increased our email sign-ups by 10%

Now that's all fine and dandy - Depending on the data-capture fields, we can follow-up with some great content to the consumer, but the cost is the annoyance for the x% who don't sign-up.

By having elements like this on the site, you are making the content less relevant, which as we know is a no-no for search engines, but also importantly annoying for people.

Potential alternatives.

• Most tools allow you to amend the logic as to when these types of pop-ups show. By analysing your site, you can see the flags from on-site behaviour for people who are likely to drop-off from a sale and use this technique then.
• There isn't much space on a mobile, so the ability to be succinct is very important. Designers will be able to provide a less-intrusive alternative to this throughout the website user journeys.

It's been the case for a number of years that digital specialisms are merging. Making a website work well for your audience will make it less likely you'll be impacted by algorithm changes.

Want to talk more? Give the ever-so-friendly James B a call on 01675 443 939 (or you can email at jamesb@rbh.co.uk)