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Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrusive Pop-Up Ads
- eumenides1 10y agoI wish Google would penalize websites with pay walls
- Scirra_Tom 10y agoI was under the impression they would (hidden content/different content for Googlebot).
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoMost paywalls which offer the Googlebot the full site also offer the full site if you follow a Google search result to the article. So while you're correct that providing the Googlebot and people coming from Google Search different results is prohibited, most paywall sites just don't show the paywall for either.
- funnyfacts365 10y agoWhy does it matter where you come from? Content cloaking is content cloaking, referrers shouldn't matter.
- pyrophane 10y agoGoogle cares that if you click a link in a Google search result that the content you see is the same as what they crawl, so paywalled sites give Google search traffic a pass because they don't want to be penalized by Google. Of course, I agree with you in principle.
- tyingq 10y agoSome only give you 2 or 3 article views then cut you off. But, of course, they still appear in search results.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoPay walls will probably inevitably be the only way quality content gets generated, given the increasing prevalence of ad blockers. As the return on investment for online advertising wanes, there's a good chance you'll see more of this, not less. Furthermore, most paywalled sites seem to deliver a non-paywall version to Google servers and when coming from Google search explicitly to avoid this happening.
- ashark 10y agoMost of the best content on the Internet was created by volunteers, for free, in my experience. The rise of ad-funded content has done more harm than good, overall.
- Alupis 10y ago> Most of the best content on the Internet was created by volunteers, for free What content is that? It costs money to host/serve that content at the very minimum. If it's videos like youtube, etc.. .the content creators absolutely get paid. Most people's blogs have ads to help offset hosting costs. There might be a few select examples - but in general, somebody's got to pay the bills.
- Retra 10y agoHow many HN posters do you think are paid to comment here?
- Alupis 10y ago> How many HN posters do you think are paid to comment here? How many articles that HN posters discuss were written for free, have no ads on the site/blog, nor are behind a paywall, nor have some ulterior motive for the content (recognition, advertising/promotion, etc)?
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoI don't disagree, but a lot of content we enjoy costs more money to produce and host than volunteers can afford. Especially high bandwidth content like video.
- tyingq 10y agoA paywall is a pop up ad, and worse than most, in that you can't dismiss it. Google would argue that visitors coming via search aren't paywalled, but often that isn't true. Some give you 3 free views, for example, then cut you off. To me, if you want a paywall, that's fine...But then your content shouldn't show up on search engines, or perhaps if it does, it should be clearly marked as such.
- st3v3r 10y agoWhy shouldn't people be able to get paid for their work? No one is forcing you to pay them; it's just the same as anything else has been: If you want the product of someone's labor, you pay them what they ask for.
- tyingq 10y agoThey can get paid. It's just whether they should enjoy free traffic from a search engine when their content isn't free. At the very least, if there's a possibility I'm hitting a paywall, the search engine should put a [paid content] label on the search result.
- CaptSpify 10y agoWhere did anyone say that they can't get paid for their work?
- st3v3r 10y agoThe guy who said that he wants paywalled sites punished for trying to get paid for their work.
- CaptSpify 10y agoNobody said that. OP said that he wishes google would penalize sites with paywalls, but that has nothing to do with sites getting paid for their work. There are many ways to get paid for your work without using a bait-and-switch method where you show google a different page than the one you are showing to your users.
- FreakyT 10y agoGood. Those have been becoming increasingly prevalent to the mobile web's detriment. I don't mind a few ads, but many of these interstitials are downright maliciously designed, making the entire page load consistent on hitting a tiny "x" target, presumably designed with the intention of facilitating accidental clicks on the ad.
- bradlys 10y agoThis title confused me. I thought Google was penalizing mobile websites by injecting intrusive pop-up ads.
- aresant 10y agoYou mean intrusive like the AMP header on every !@$! mobile page now that's not only annoying but breaks the standard UX?
- runn1ng 10y agoSeriously, f..k AMP. It is breaking the internet with the google lock-in URLs.
- patmcguire 10y agoI can't get the real URL from them on mobile at all.
- Alupis 10y agoAnd worse, when you click the "Share" button to text the URL to a friend, it sends them the AMP URL (which isn't always easy to extract the real URL from).
- runn1ng 10y agoIt's in the actual URL, hidden after all the google crap
- agumonkey 10y agoGoogle likes clean urls for everybody except themselves. The Google results tracked url are driving me mad.
- ArlenBales 10y agoOn my iPhone 6s Safari AMP sites don't even work. I see the AMP header and everything below it is just blank. I always have to "Request Desktop Site" to even load the site.
- chrisper 10y agoAre you using an adblocker?
- chmars 10y agoWhat's about intrusive cookie warnings? (They are apparently mandatory in the European Union and Google made them part of the Adwords rules some time ago.)
- patmcguire 10y agoThey are explicitly permitted. From Google's own statement on this (https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easily-access-content-on.html https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easi...): "By contrast, here are some examples of techniques that, used responsibly, would not be affected by the new signal: Interstitials that appear to be in response to a legal obligation, such as for cookie usage or for age verification."
- funnyfacts365 10y agoFunny thing is, they are supposed to let you use the websites while refusing cookies, but some of them force you to accept the cookies or else all you'll see is the popup.
- chmars 10y agoThanks!
- flukus 10y agoWhy do cookie warnings have to be a popup? Not to mention that the vast majority of times these warnings come up cookies are in no way required for the site.
- netinstructions 10y agoFunny, because Google Adsense offers "Page-level vignette ads" which are full page interstitial ads shown for mobile devices. The penalty must not apply because: > They're displayed when the user leaves a page, rather than when they arrive on one, so the user doesn’t have to wait for them to load https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/6245304?hl=en https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/6245304?hl=en
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sixtypoundhound 10y agoActually, they supposedly are also only displayed when Google's algorithms believe the user experience isn't negatively affected by the pop up. Not sure how much they have behind the scenes on this, but I recall them showing up erratically when I tested them for my site.
- robtaylor 10y agoI specifically asked Google rep on that point and he said penalty would still apply. One G product can affect another it seems. It is worth bearing in mind that not all sites are reliant on google traffic, so more cash from Adsense at a hit on ranking may mean more £ and zero traffic impact.
- QuercusMax 10y agoThis is absolutely true: in the past when certain Google teams have asked to have their pages bumped up in ranking, they've been told to work on their SEO and/or pay for ads.
- serge2k 10y agoOh good, Google abusing their power again. I guess as long as it's for "good" reasons. edit: would any downvoters care to explain how google being able to arbitrarily dictate web content is a power they should have?
- steego 10y agoGoogle's users don't like popup ads so this will likely make them happier with their search results and make them more loyal Google users. So why is Google beholden to deliver traffic to websites that use obtrusive popup ads when Google's users don't like it? Is Google somehow morally obligated to ensure a website's revenue model isn't disturbed when trying to provide a better experience for their users?
- tyingq 10y ago>Is Google somehow morally obligated to ensure a website's revenue model... This particular change doesn't irk me, but the one where they penalized for too many "above the fold" ads did bother me..because Google is the king of above-the-fold ads in search results. Similar for penalties for "duplicate content", which is exactly what their kg/widget program is doing...scraping other people's content. So, as long they as practice as they preach, it seems reasonable.
- manarth 10y agowould any downvoters care to explain how google being able to arbitrarily dictate web content is a power they should have? Not actually a downvoter, but I do disagree with the sentiment: Google are simply choosing how to rank web-pages, for the people who visit their own search engine. If there weren't any monopoly issues in play, there would be no question of Google's behaviour at all. As it is, there are potentially monopoly issues in play, but in this instance, Google are simply penalising sites that provide a poor UX, which is a reasonable position for a search engine to take: prioritise the sites which provide the best value to visitors. As an end-user, I would like duck-duck-go, bing, yahoo, and every other search engine, to penalise sites that use popups in this way.
- SquareWheel 10y ago
- alphonsegaston 10y agoI'd really like to see them work on improving relevancy instead of swinging their corporate weight around at whatever "benevolent" end they decide is important this week. Considering how much time I have to spend nowadays tweaking queries and futzing with the search tool options to get relevant results, I'm starting to look at all of these moves much more cynically. Taking on anti-patterns is great, but not when your search experience is rapidly becoming one.
- dsjoerg 10y agoI don't find myself having to tweak queries to get what I want. Can you give an example or two of what you're talking about?
- swang 10y agoi think what your parent post refers to is, sometimes searching for <term1> <term2> <term3> <term4> google will instead just try <term1> <something that may be a synonym for term 2> and no <term3> or <term4>. then you have to go back and put <term3> <term4> in quotes to make sure they're actually searched on.
- alphonsegaston 10y agoYes, ignoring parts of the query has just absurdly diluted result quality. And if you want something like the term or the term in a phrase, you have to put it twice and quote both.
- tragic 10y agoIt has diluted the quality of some results. I find it particularly irksome when googling for error messages, or other precise technical matters. For more open ended queries, of course, the fuzziness can be helpful. And I would assume that the typical Google search is going to benefit more from the latter approach.
- 10y ago
- jrochkind1 10y agoWhy only "mobile websites"? I hate em just as much when I'm viewing on the desktop.
- CamelCaseName 10y agoProbably because it's a much bigger issue on mobile websites where your ability to click precisely on the 'x' is much lower than when your input device is a mouse or trackpad. Edit: I am new to HN, why this was downvoted?
- manarth 10y agoAnd when the loading speed is slow, which makes the layout move, so your attempt to click the [X] accidentally clicks the advert instead, generating income for the site. (why are you being downvoted? No idea, you make a reasonable, articulate statement, with a credible explanation. Sometimes it just happens on HN. I like to assume people are accidentally clicking the [▼] character by mistake).
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- AnOscelot 10y agoI can understand why the desktop gets a pass, but I really, really wish they would consider doing it for sites which pop up those damned "Give us your email!!" forms. Especially those sites which pop it up almost immediately when I've arrived at their site for the first time. I don't even know your site yet. Just followed this link from somewhere else. And you're immediately demanding my email for your pointless newsletter? Maybe it's just me, but I think I hate those things more than anything else on the current web. Maybe even more than autoplay videos.
- lostinny 10y agoI agree, though I've unfortunately seen several tests that suggest that they work. The immediate "Give us your email" is much more effective than requests that wait for a certain number of pages, trigger after a certain scroll amount, or wait until you've been on the site for a significant amount of time. Of the people who see the pop up, the conversion rate is highest for those who see it immediately. And there's not a significant effect on bounce rates. I have no idea why! I would never simply give my email address to an immediate pop up modal.
- StuieK 10y agoIf users hate these, shouldn't google's ability to rank the best pages already take care of this problem without special casing it?
- st3v3r 10y agoBecause fuck people who are trying to get paid for their work? I mean, we can't all work 100% for free all the time like you must do. EDIT: I guess people who downvote also don't get paid for their work, and don't feel anyone else should?
- CaptSpify 10y agoYou keep arguing that people "should be paid for their work", but I've yet to see someone say that they shouldn't be.
- dang 10y agoYou repeatedly crossed into incivility in this thread. You also broke the HN guidelines by going on about downvoting. Please don't do these things. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13439901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13439901 and marked it off-topic.
- st3v3r 10y agoI'm not seeing the repeated incivility. That comment was on the line, but none of the others were. Please provide an explanation as to why it was uncivil.
- evolve2k 10y agoA client has just asked me to add a pop-up "whatch this vid, join our newsletter", when the user scrolls to about half way down the homepage for their SAAS startup. Further the pop up is not to reappear for 90 days. They got the approach from attending an online marketing workshop that suggested this increases their list. Felt like a bit of an anti-pattern to me. Anyone have advice as to if this is effective or if it will be affected by today's announcement?
- user5994461 10y agoDo it and measure how many more (or less) registrations you get.
- Shoop 10y agoYou will probably get more registrations at the expense of pissing everyone else off
- Magicstatic 10y agoPop-ups like that have long been shown to improve conversion rates... at the increase of pissing off people who wouldn't have been a conversion anyway.
- flukus 10y agoDo they increase conversion rates long term? A lot of those pissed off people might not be customers today but could be in future.
- patmcguire 10y agoWhat was the last hover ad you saw? Closing it is so instinctual I doubt it even registered. Those people won't remember next time. Annoying people is an evolutionarily stable strategy.
- flukus 10y ago
- quadrangle 10y ago"Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrusive Pop-Up Ads" I totally read this as "Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites… [by using the penalty of imposed] Intrusive Pop-Up Ads" instead of "…penalizing those websites that use Intrusive Pop-Up Ads"
- quadrangle 10y agoUse uBlock Origin people! In Firefox on Android. Don't see any pop-up ads! I can't believe how much pain people subjective themselves to needlessly!
- CaptSpify 10y agoThese popups are one of the biggest reasons I started using ublock origin!
- GrinningFool 10y agoI'd love to see uMatrix on FF Android. uBO has a habit of killing things needed for the content in my experience . The lack of a simple selective bypass makes it frustrating for the site that will not load correctly.
- NoGravitas 10y agoThe advanced mode panel in uBO works on FF for Android, though it's not as painless as on desktop.
- herbst 10y agoWait you are telling me it is even worse? I see those popups all the time even with ublock
- quadrangle 10y agoI once saw someone using their phone with no blocking of anything, it was truly horrifying!
- herbst 10y agoI dont block anything on my phone ether. My policy is to bounce whatever annoys me ASAP. Yes i mostly read only hacker news on my phone
- Animats 10y agoWhat's really stupid are sites from which you can buy things, but then pop up an ad for something else. Fandango, which sells movie tickets, does this. As you're trying to get to the "buy ticket" page, they shove movie trailers for other movies in your face. I mentioned a site earlier today which sold plumbing supplies.[1] They pop up a "gimme your email" box which 1) cannot be dismissed, and 2) isn't even theirs, it's from "justuno.com", a spamming service. These outfits have lost sight of what their web site is for. They're putting obstacles in front of a customer who's about to give them money. This is usually considered a big mistake in retail. [1] https://www.tushy.me/ https://www.tushy.me/
- _delirium 10y agoPop-ups asking me to please take a survey about the user experience of the website, too. Well, I was trying to actually buy something on your website, before your goddamn survey pop-up got in the way.
- lathiat 10y agoI've had many sites pop this up within seconds of being on the site. Though the attention span of some might be short, I suspect the data collected by these surveys is highly unhelpful simply because you have not yet experienced the product. Given they're all from the same company usually whose name escapes me right now, you'd think they'd be better at it?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- digitalmaster 10y agoThis is actually pretty impressive for a ad company to take steps that are overwhelmingly better from a UX perspective but also directly target online ad revenue models. #bold #impressive #hardProblems #thumbsUP
- JumpCrisscross 10y agoLooking at you, Forbes...
- bogomipz 10y agoThe article states" "In short, if a web page puposely hides content behind an ad or forces interaction with an ad" Does this mean that it doesn't include those nauseating "follow us/sign up for our newsletter" light boxes that plague the web now? Also why would this only be for mobile? Are they any less of a scourge for desktops?
- chimpscanfly 10y agoLook, popups are great for marketing, but this penalization isn't bad from a marketing and UX standpoint. Popups, while effective, are being overused, which means they will become less and less effective. On top of that, too many are poorly created and don't work on mobile, making it difficult to impossible to close out. This is unfortunate. I've long held that we need a less intrusive "popup" that nudges instead of disrupts users. Basically a Hello Bar style that while catching my attention is something I can easily ignore.
- valine 10y agoI wonder if forbes will have to remove that annoying "Quote of the day page" or if this only applies to JavaScript popups. I also wonder how google distinguishes between things like floating nav bars and elements that obscure content.
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agoHow about Google let me install extensions on Chrome in Android?
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agoThen I can penalize websites for any reason, including tracking me.
- johnnydoe9 10y agoI don't think that's possible, I'm not a programmer so I can't be sure but I read somewhere that the way Chrome is built it can't be done.
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agointeresting...I'd like to know more about the technical reasons why not. I should note that Firefox on Android is able to run desktop plugins.
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agoI found this article from 2015: “There are no plans to add extensions support on mobile. We haven’t been able to implement these on mobile and still have it be a good user experience.” http://www.omgchrome.com/chrome-android-extensions-not-planned-ama/ http://www.omgchrome.com/chrome-android-extensions-not-plann... Chrome FAQ currently says: "Chrome apps and extensions are currently not supported on Chrome for Android. We have no plans to announce at this time." https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/faq https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/faq
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agoClarificaiton: Add-ons that work with desktop Firefox do not automatically work in Firefox for Android, but according to https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/Firefox_for_Android https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/Firefox_for_Andr... there are only a few things a plugin dev needs to be aware of.
- makecheck 10y agoThe only thing a web site should need to “measure” is how long its visitors stay. I know that the instant I see any pop-up garbage, I immediately leave: I don’t care what the pop-up might say, I don’t care where they might’ve placed a little "X" to dismiss their message, I simply go BACK and I DON’T return. Do not allow yourself to be bullied. Yes, services have some nonzero value but your time also has tremendous value and you should not undersell it by putting up with stupid crap. Any site that shoves things in your face is being disrespectful, it is wasting your time, and it is costing you, which is not OK. Let those sites die out.
- ageitgey 10y agoMost users hate these pop-ups and cheer this move from Google. But let me add a little context to why these ads are so prevalent and why some companies view this move as Google abusing their power. If you visit to any "guide" website like TripAdviser, Yelp, etc, these days on a mobile browser, you'll notice that the sites often barely let you do anything without downloading the native app. They all but refuse to let you see content and throw up "Download our app!" pop-ups everywhere. By traditional logic, that seems insane. Why are they putting so many roadblocks between the user and the content? Surely that must be driving away users, right? The reason for this behavior is that Google is systematically destroying the SEO traffic of these sites by adding their own competitive features to search result pages that appear above organic results. If you search for a restaurant / hotel / flight on your phone, Google will often show its own custom widgets above the organic search results. It's not unusual that zero organic search results are visible "above the fold". The more Google does this, the more the share of clicks goes to them instead of to organic search results in these types of searches. That means that even if these guide companies have #1 search rankings for every possible search term, they are seeing their SEO traffic plummet every month because they can't compete with Google's "above #1 result" placement. So as a defensive move, some companies are basically giving up on SEO traffic in the long term and trying to forcefully convert many visitors as possible into users who visit directly via a native app (and thus bypass Google). They know that every web user who doesn't download the native app is ever less likely to ever find them again via a search result page. So to these companies, they see this change from Google as another anti-competitive move because Google is taking away one of their last remaining lifelines for user acquisition. Personally, I find those full-page ads super annoying and hate them too and think they should go away. But like anything complicated, this isn't a simple black and white move to benefit users. It's also a strategic move that helps Google and hurts some competitors.
- megous 10y agoThey might as well be more open about this on the actual page.
- cossatot 10y agoKinda makes you wonder if people will stop using Google search if it keeps them within the walled garden of other Google services. It wouldn't surprise me if Google is the next AOL in a decade or two, for reasons including this one.
- thebspatrol 10y agoKind of scary that Google is so much of a gatekeeper to the entire internet that they can essentially decide which websites get visited and coerce them into submission.
- amelius 10y agoI want sites penalized when they take part in user-tracking.
- beefsack 10y agoI wonder how much of the internet userbase, like myself, just close a site the moment a pop-up appears which takes me away from what I want to be doing. Has anyone here done any AB testing on it and have some numbers?
- herbst 10y agoJust on a very small scale on a "funny site" the majority does not seem to care. Bounce rate only increased minimally and email list growed super fast
- chinhodado 10y agoFor me, the most annoying thing while browsing on mobile is the vibration ads/fake alarms. It's horrible. I haven't even seen a single good use of this vibration API, as it is only ever used for things like "Your phone haz virus click here now". Why isn't there an option to disable it in Chrome is beyond me.
- patmcguire 10y agoI would love a way to disable window.location, or for Google to punish all the sites that are just bait for a delayed JS redirect.
- username223 10y agoWhy does this API even exist? I thought the "Security and privacy considerations" section [1] was a good example of how hostile the Modern Web has become, but anyone who thought that allowing web pages to vibrate your phone was a good idea was either malicious or oblivious. [1] https://w3c.github.io/vibration/ https://w3c.github.io/vibration/
- chinhodado 10y agoTo be fair there have been a drive of exposing web API for everything on the local machine, including USB, Bluetooth, etc. However, just like with location, camera, microphone, etc. access to vibration should be granted by the user, not automatically granted like right now.
- username223 10y agoIt's too late for the web app/page ecosystem to be fixed, and adding more access just makes it worse. Most web stuff is so bloated with tracking and indirect third-party software installation that it's difficult for even the creator of a page/app to figure out what code gets run (see e.g. [1], scroll down to "Fad Ads"). There are still social norms for what native programs should do -- tracking and automatic forced update are frowned upon -- and developers who do these things are shunned. The browser has become a sandbox for hostile actors, and it seems like a terrible idea to make that sandbox larger. [1] http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm
- apercu 10y agoThis thread is hilarious. I wish I had time to upvote each comment.
- khana 10y agoWelcome news.
- amirmansour 10y agoHow will this affect UI patterns like Modals?
- nkkollaw 10y agoModals don't usually open by themselves.
- amirmansour 10y agoI can imagine a scenarios where modal can be conditionally shown based on URL query params.
- iwlbebnd 10y agoI've largely stopped using chrome on mobile because of the lack of ublock. When I do use chrome it's with JavaScript disabled. Despite a few UI differences switching to Firefox on mobile with ublock has been excellent.
- adamaewong 10y agoI've been using Brave for Android which has built in ad-block. Since it's based on Chromium, it looks and feels almost identical to Chrome, just faster and without ads.
- st3v3r 10y agoAgain, why? Why are you so against people getting paid for their work?
- tyingq 10y agoThere are many publications that are paid for their work without the benefit of free search engine traffic. I might have a different opinion if there were a workable micropayment system where I could pay for the article. I searched for something, saw an article in the search results. I want to read the article...Not buy a full subscription to some newspaper or magazine. It is bait and switch...Some results lead to what was promised in the snippet on the search results. Others lead to an ad for a subscription.
- dang 10y agoThis crosses into incivility, which breaks the site guidelines. Please don't do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13440624 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13440624 and marked it off-topic.
- st3v3r 10y agoHow is this incivility?
- dang 10y agoYou didn't just build a strawman, you made it an asshole and attributed it to the other commenter. That's not a civil move in discussion. Please take better care to address others respectfully when commenting here.
- st3v3r 10y agoNo, I presented the consequences of their goal. Removing paywalled results from search engines will result in it being harder for people to be paid for their work. Why is it considered bad form to remind people of that?
- agumonkey 10y agoadditional ideas for google: - penalty for non no-js fallback
- notatoad 10y agowhat about the websites that implement adsense's "please fill out this survey to view the content" ad? do they get penalized.
- therealmarv 10y agoSo can we get rid of forbes.com quotes finally?
- webartisan 10y agoWhat's disheartening is that many websites have started finding workarounds to show these interstitials after a delay or in between screen transitions. The inherent problem is that app experiences somehow lead to better conversions, and no company would want to lose revenue due to dropped install numbers.
- jbicha 10y agoBut will they penalize mobile apps with intrusive pop-up ads?
- natch 10y agoThis is great news... I'm normally not always a fan of Google's every move but when they use their position to encourage a better web, their power is awesome and we can look forward to the effects. The headline was confusing. Google has started using intrusive pop-up ads to penalize mobile sites? This writing has clarity issues. >Web pages need ads to operate, but... Plenty of web pages (websites?) are operated without ads, out of love for a topic, desire to build a name, or other reasons. Web pages don't NEED ads. Well some have been built to rely on them, and can only survive with ads, but certainly not all web pages. Aside from that and the headline, great level of detail in this article about the exceptions, the general sizes, and the rollout.
- bluetwo 10y agoSo... all mobile sites?
- shadowSeeker 10y agoMany of these pop ups strategically block navigation options in the end adding up to unnecessary hits on some 2ndry linked page(via intrusive ads) or making sick stickies keeping us away from main material for which we were initially there making us dependent on AdBlockers. These sites find that out and stop access to their content(their concern maybe genuine but ugly process) until we stop AdBlockers taking away our freedom altogether. I have stopped going to most News Websites for this.
- gagginaspinnata 10y agoFinally
- Smirnoff 10y agoI really would like to see Google penalize websites that force you to login after google showed these websites in the results. 1. Take Linkedin for example: you search for a person on google; google shows a linkedin result; you go to linkedin but you are greeted with giant popup asking you to login to view info. Ridiculous. 2. Same with Quora: they come in results with basic info, but when you go to their page, they forward you to registration/login page. These practices are not ok in my book. Surely, they can do whatever they want on their websites but if Google indexes you and shows some info in search results, then you better show that info on your page without forcing me to register. PS: To be clear -- this behavior happens on mobile version of their websites. Not sure how it plays out on desktop.
- jakubp 10y agoUnfortunately the info typically is on that page, just not complete - and you want more and Google knows it's the way to that information, so results are largely correct, no? If those sites show something else to you than they show to Google Bot, that's against Google's policy and they should be penalized, so I'm assuming they aren't. If energy required to get to the information you need through that path is too much (i.e. lots of people bounce on that page), that will again, generally, result in putting it lower in search results. So either most people agree on putting up with the login page (or are logged in already), or some other factors which I assume you'd like to discount keep those pages so high.
- Smirnoff 10y agoLet's take a look at Quora's case. Please do the following: 1. Open your mobile browser. 2. Ask a question on Google and add "quora" so you get some results. 3. Open Quora's result link 4. See that result for a brief second and 5. Be forwarded to registration page, which doesn't have any close or cancel out buttons. 6. Try tapping back and you are back to Google results 7. Curse at Quora and never tap on their results again. That last point is only for me. There is a choice to register. You are free to choose. PS: You are right, the information that Google showed/indexed is there on Quora. But for regular people (not Google bots), it's there for a second. IDK about you but I'd place this behavior into dark pattern UX book. PPS: For people, who don't believe this behavior, you can see the video of my experience on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiOMwRwXLcg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiOMwRwXLcg
- t_fatus 10y agoif they could stop showing results in GoogleNow which, once clicked, immedialtely redirect me to some kind of creepy scary vibrating ringing page telling me I've a virus on my 'NEXUS 5X - Orange SAS' that would be even better
- herbst 10y agoYou are the second that mentions this. How comes i never seen that?
- oliver2u 10y agoWhat about their own Pop - up ad ?
- antihero 10y agoI think the most annoying trend is those redirect-to-store type ads. I think they're probably seen as malicious but there needs to be more done to prevent scummy advertisers doing this. You get to a point where you literally cannot use sites because the second after the page load you're redirected through a whole load of dodgy looking servers and eventually to the store to get some garbage app.
- aphextron 10y agoI've never understood this pattern anyways. I swipe right and look for another website the moment I see a full screen popup on mobile. I can't imagine they are effective.
- herbst 10y agoI hope this also penalizes facebook. They are using half of the screen to force me to a account. I know it is supposed to be less, but try with 1600x900
- dhp1161 10y agothey need to penalize imgur for doing this
- nhumrich 10y agoWhile I applaud Google for doing this, it's also very scary that Google has that much power that they can basically make anyone on the web do anything by threatening ranking blackmail. Google is starting to use more grey area tactics to control things (such as disabling accounts for those who resold a pixel). Makes me start to actually worry about the power Google has.
- whiddershins 10y agoThis. And the conflict of interest is possibly anti-trust level. (IANAL) A company that gets the majority of their revenue from ads is penalizing sites in their near-monopoly search results for showing the "wrong" ads.
- whositis 10y agoThey have been doing this for a while. Look at the "safe browsing" stuff... Google will blacklist your website if it doesn't like the ads you're showing. That blacklist is used by firefox, chrome, safari. Your website will then just show a "safe browsing" blocked error. massive abuse of power. It's amazing that the company that controls most internet advertising, also controls which websites are blacklisted by the vast majority of browsers. Not using adsense? Maybe we blacklist that website until they use adsense! :) And the biggest problem is, there is no oversight, or communication or recourse. If your website gets blocked, you won't know why, and will just have to click a "reconsider" button to ask Google to see if it's acceptable now.
- SippinLean 10y agoIf their decisions suddenly stop being based on returning relevant results, and instead are focused on "blackmail" that erodes their brand, what incentive would they have to do that? Not to mention they said they were going to do this back in August. So far that hasn't "made" Quora, Yelp, or Pinterest stop doing anything.
- bborud 10y agoGood. Fuck'em. This is the most eloquent response these sites deserve. They know this is annoying so there is no excuse for doing it while claiming it adds value or somesuch bullshit.
- TwoBit 10y agoCan we penalize web sites that beg people to use their app instead?
- apercu 10y agoI occasionally browsed Reddit on my iPad. They force a really crappy mobile execution now (as in in the last 7 days). I'm not going to install the app, I just won't visit Reddit on my iPad any more. On smaller devices they pop up the App download every time you visit. So I had already stopped browsing Reddit on my phone. I'm all for responsive web and apps when they add value. And I know responsive web on complicated sites can be a challenge, but if 50% of web traffic is mobile now, what does it do to a sites traffic if the mobile experience is terrible?
- webartisan 10y agoThe problem doesn't seem to be related only to web. These dark interstitial patterns are present in every platform. Recently used Ola's (Uber's main competitor in India) native app on android, and right when you're about to book a pool ride, at times, they'll show you a full page interstitial advertising pool rides. And if that wasn't ridiculous already, they provide no way to cancel the popup. The only way to proceed is by clicking "Try share". And when you do so, it throws a generic "Uh Oh, Something went wrong error", and you're basically stuck without a ride.
- mikelbring 10y agoThe worst one by far are those that also vibrate your phone. It should be illegal, or impossible.
- Transisto 10y agoBrave browser for mobile has only benefits. (the one that is based on chrome)
- NinjaViktor 10y agoI guess watching porn would be more enjoyable now.