Google to punish mobile websites that obscure content with popups and advertisements

Google will start to devalue mobile websites that show large advertisements such as intrusive interstitials. According to the search giant these advertisements visually obscure content and frustrate users.myce-interstitials-google

Sites that continue to use large advertisements on their mobile site will be penalized by Google starting January 2017. The advertisements also include pop-ups that are shown to users when they navigate to a page from search results or that show when users are scrolling through the page. Also interstitials that have to be dismissed before the page content become accessible are penalized. Just as layouts 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.

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Unfortunately some interstitials are required in several countries, such as the ones used to ask a users whether he wants to use cookies or asking whether the user is above a certain age. Google will differentiate between the responsibly used and required interstitials and the annoying intrusive ones.

It's unclear how much the search giant will devalue pages that obscure content, it writes about that, "Remember, this new signal is just one of hundreds of 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."

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