7 ms·

Most 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 thi

Most 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 ago
They might as well be more open about this on the actual page.
cossatot 10y ago
Kinda 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.
- theWatcher37 10y ago
  If AMP is an indicator of their long term strategy AOL2.0 is definitely in the cards.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  I think many people are living in a Facebook world. They are clearly AOL 2.0. I always thought AMP was a way to get some visibility into Facebook sharing traffic.
- lmm 10y ago
  What's the open-web alternative? I've switched my phone search to Bing because I'm so frustrated with AMP, but the search results are pretty poor to the extent that I manually search google a few times a week.
baddox 10y ago
Where do they expect these visitors to come from, if not from Google searches? It doesn't add up to me. If people can only get to your site from Google by scrolling past Google's own widgets, why make your site worse and thus discouraging them from scrolling down next time?
- dandelany 10y ago
  Presumably they are hoping to build brand loyalty - they want you to open your Hotels.com (or whatever) app directly next time you need to book, instead of doing a Google search
- patmcguire 10y ago
  Because the user didn't scroll, the site got lucky and Google didn't have a result for that particular query. It was a miracle, it won't happen again, there is no second chance, hit them with everything.
- toomanybeersies 10y ago
  Brand recognition and loyalty. People don't use bookmarks, especially on mobile phones. Not many people are going to bookmark hostelworld.com and when looking for a hostel, they're not going to click the bookmark and search on hostelworld. They're going to Google search for "hostels in XYZ", and hostelworld will be there, underneath Google's own recommendations. With the app though, the icon is conveniently sitting there on the home screen. You're probably getting less new users by giving on on web, but the users that you do get using your app are going to be much more loyal.
patwalls 10y ago
Wow didn't know this. Is this also why many e-commerce sites beg for your email every time you visit?
- chipperyman573 10y ago
  That's more so they can bring you back even if you weren't actively looking for something ("wow, widget x is 50% off - I'll probably need it in the next few months, I should buy it now."). Also to keep their brand in the front of your mind the next time you do actively look for something.
- angry-hacker 10y ago
  For many the reason is Facebook who canibalized the brands natural reach without paying. Everyone panicked and good old email is trustworthy. FB holds the contacts in their paid garden that they once so hard fought for.
- webartisan 10y ago
  Marketing teams are usually data driven rather than user experience driven. How does one counter the argument that "anecdotal evidence suggests people who sign up with us are 2x more likely to convert, so let's force more sign ups to increase revenue".
  - LordDragonfang 10y ago
    Do these people ever consider that they might have their causation backwards?
    - webartisan 10y ago
      Of course, and this does get pointed out to them. But it's easier for them to extrapolate data and say, hey, we couldn't get emails of xxx thousand users, so we lost xxx amount, vs our argument that they probably lost a number of users who were annoyed by the popup. Except, you can count conversions, but you can't "measure annoyance"
    - 10y ago
bduerst 10y ago
Isn't this more of a sign that restaurant/hotel businesses are becoming more SEO savvy, and that aggregators are becoming outdated? Remember, the aggregators originally dethroned the travel agencies as the 'experts' in connecting people with what they want. Google search is in the business of providing information, meaning if they have the info available they'll provide an aggregated list of restaurants to someone who wants restaurants.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  I doubt it. Google has a long and storied history (since Dejanews) of fucking up user generated content on google properties. If you're looking for restaurants and hotels, TripAdvisor and Yelp are exponentially better than anything Google is going to give you.
  - Shog9 10y ago
    That's the kicker though: how bad is "good enough"? If I ask Google for a donut shop and can pick the one that has devil's food chocolate donuts, who cares if Yelp would've given me better reviews; the basic information is there in front of me, and I don't have to install an app or deal with popups. I stopped using Yelp the minute they made their mobile site unusable in a pinch while pulled over on the side of the road. It doesn't matter how good the content is if I don't have the time to jump through their hoops.
    - Spooky23 10y ago
      80% of my searches for this sort of thing is when I'm traveling. If I'm looking for food/lodging, I want the best possible option.
  - bduerst 10y ago
    It's not user generated content though. That's the point - that these businesses are providing enough information to allow Google to aggregate them for a user with intent, rather than just pass the user off to another website aggregator.
DrScump 10y ago
The reason for this behavior is that Google is systematically destroying the SEO traffic of these sites Another reason is that with apps, they have the opportunity to harvest the phone owners private data directly (contacts, messages, seeing what competing apps are installed, etc.) Most people don't pay attention to the overbroad spectrum of access many apps demand. Specific example: Samsung changed the Gallery app (default on my GS7 to display photos from within the Camera app) to demand access to my Calendar. If I hit Deny, it aborts. My Calendar? Really?
- nvr219 10y ago
  How much of a problem is this on iOS?
  - favorited 10y ago
    Most apps will work fine if you decline their extra permission requests, though obviously certain features may not work without them. The rest of your app has to function normally, and you definitely can't crash or otherwise programmatically quit. There are one or two apps I use that do require extra permissions to function – like the NFL Sunday Ticket app won't work unless I enable location services, because it needs to black-out local games due to broadcast rights. Some things are simply not available on iOS. For example, your app can't get a list of other apps you have installed, or send/receive text messages. Of course, every once in a while someone finds a way to abuse a different API maliciously. Apple had to limit the availability of the API used to determine if a URL scheme can be handled by the device because Twitter was spamming it to determine what apps you had installed (if your device can open a 'dominospizza://' link, they knew you had the Dominos app installed). So now you have to whitelist up to 50 URL schemes your app might try to launch.
    - DrScump 10y ago
      On Android 5.x and earlier, you had to grant all possible requested permissions up-front during installation.
  - odysseus 10y ago
Analemma_ 10y ago
Here's the thing: I don't care. I don't care if Google's algorithm makes life difficult for SEOs. I don't care if it prioritizes Google's own properties unfairly. I don't care if it hurts somebody's conversion rate. All I care about is the quality of my browsing experience, which takes a nosedive every time one of these fullscreen mobile ads shows up. As long as Google's algorithm ranks results roughly in the order of how useful and pleasant they are to me - even if that's just a side-effect of their own self-interested intentions - I'm OK. In general I'm not a big fan of egoist philosophy, but in this case, all I care about is me, me, me. Google should keep doing what they're doing. It might be dictatorial, but the web has so few incentives to not load your website down with a ratchet of ever-increasing invasive crap, that any incentive pushing in the opposite direction is good, and Google is one of the only agents with the might to make that happen.
- edblarney 10y ago
  " I don't care if it hurts somebody's conversion rate. All I care about is the quality of my browsing experience" In the short run, it won't matter, but in the long run, it may likely affect your browsing experience on the whole. Google doesn't do anything well but search. So you are trading a slightly better search experience - which may cost you the death of several brands that provide much more than search outcomes. Trip Advisor, Yelp etc. ostensibly provide a useful service, beyond whatever Google will do. So when those companies go, we lose those greater services. The impact of Google's monopoly is something we cannot ignore. It's like 80% of Russians still support Putin, because he 'seems strong' - but Russians also don't realize how much he has de-facto degraded their standard of living. Russians would be a lot wealthier if they integrated into global markets, stop invading neighbouring territories. There'd be massive growth and opportunity for Russians - at least in globalist terms.
  - RestlessMind 10y ago
    > Google doesn't do anything well but search. I beg to differ. Google also provides great products for - Maps, Email, Browser, Mobile OS, Video, Photo management. If you think neither of those are great and you can think of a better alternative, you have a lot of market share to capture. Having said that, I concur with the rest of your sentiment and would like to see services like TripAdvisor, Kayak etc flourish. Disclaimer: hold a lot of GOOG
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
bastawhiz 10y ago
Counterpoint: this is (mostly) a zero-sum game. If sitewithpopups.com gets bumped down a slot, someone else gets bumped up, and the site getting bumped up is either a.) more relevant or b.) isn't being a jerk to its users. Google's widgets aren't going away; if you're going to be mad, be mad at the widgets, not the pushing-you-to-not-be-awful. I think we can all agree that these types of overlays are terrible for users. And there are alternatives, like banners and static inline suggestions to download the app. I don't mind when sites put a "Read More" button that does little more than unhide some content, why not do the same thing to invite users to your app?
- agopaul 10y ago
  > and the site getting bumped up is either a.) more relevant or b.) isn't being a jerk to its users. This is the key point of SEO nowadays. Google basically awards you if you: 1) provide good (better) content 2) have good UX
- Vinnl 10y ago
  > be mad at the widgets, not the pushing-you-to-not-be-awful I think the point was: be mad at both :)
dntrkv 10y ago
Do you have any data to back any of these claims up? Even if your claim that Google is destroying SEO traffic to these sites is true (which I am not convinced it is) and my site is getting less traffic from Google, the last thing I want to do is make the experience shittier for the less traffic that I do get. Making my site less usable is pretty much the dumbest decision I could make at that point. I should be working on ways to better convert the traffic that I do get so they are more likely to use my product and maybe even download the app one day. Who the hell goes on a shitty site with annoying ads and decides, hey, I want a dedicated spot on my home screen for this shitty service.
mschuetz 10y ago
> But like anything complicated, this isn't a simple black and white move to benefit users. It is to me. Any page that greets me with large pop-ups and "Download our app" messages can sink into obscurity, for all I care. I'm not going to download just any app and trying to force me by making your site deliberately shitty will only make me angry at you. I realy hope this move from google includes sides that slide in a ("get our app!")-banner after a few seconds, just right so I accidantely click the banner instead of the link I wanted to click.
testloop 10y ago
This drives me absolutely crazy. If I'm forced towards downloading your app I'll simply go elsewhere. Its ridiculous to expect your users to download a 126MB app (Tripadvisor's current iOS app size) and grant it all sorts of permissions just so they can search for a hotel once a year.
hx87 10y ago
If I see their "Download our app!" page, doesn't that mean that I either went to their site directly via URL, used a non-Google link, or skipped the Google widgets? How would they increase their revenue by annoying me? If I use a site I only go there via search once.

megous 10y ago

They might as well be more open about this on the actual page.

cossatot 10y ago

Kinda 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.

theWatcher37 10y ago
If AMP is an indicator of their long term strategy AOL2.0 is definitely in the cards.
Spooky23 10y ago
I think many people are living in a Facebook world. They are clearly AOL 2.0. I always thought AMP was a way to get some visibility into Facebook sharing traffic.
lmm 10y ago
What's the open-web alternative? I've switched my phone search to Bing because I'm so frustrated with AMP, but the search results are pretty poor to the extent that I manually search google a few times a week.

baddox 10y ago

Where do they expect these visitors to come from, if not from Google searches? It doesn't add up to me. If people can only get to your site from Google by scrolling past Google's own widgets, why make your site worse and thus discouraging them from scrolling down next time?

dandelany 10y ago
Presumably they are hoping to build brand loyalty - they want you to open your Hotels.com (or whatever) app directly next time you need to book, instead of doing a Google search
patmcguire 10y ago
Because the user didn't scroll, the site got lucky and Google didn't have a result for that particular query. It was a miracle, it won't happen again, there is no second chance, hit them with everything.
toomanybeersies 10y ago
Brand recognition and loyalty. People don't use bookmarks, especially on mobile phones. Not many people are going to bookmark hostelworld.com and when looking for a hostel, they're not going to click the bookmark and search on hostelworld. They're going to Google search for "hostels in XYZ", and hostelworld will be there, underneath Google's own recommendations. With the app though, the icon is conveniently sitting there on the home screen. You're probably getting less new users by giving on on web, but the users that you do get using your app are going to be much more loyal.

patwalls 10y ago

Wow didn't know this. Is this also why many e-commerce sites beg for your email every time you visit?

chipperyman573 10y ago
That's more so they can bring you back even if you weren't actively looking for something ("wow, widget x is 50% off - I'll probably need it in the next few months, I should buy it now."). Also to keep their brand in the front of your mind the next time you do actively look for something.
angry-hacker 10y ago
For many the reason is Facebook who canibalized the brands natural reach without paying. Everyone panicked and good old email is trustworthy. FB holds the contacts in their paid garden that they once so hard fought for.
webartisan 10y ago
Marketing teams are usually data driven rather than user experience driven. How does one counter the argument that "anecdotal evidence suggests people who sign up with us are 2x more likely to convert, so let's force more sign ups to increase revenue".
- LordDragonfang 10y ago
  Do these people ever consider that they might have their causation backwards?
  - webartisan 10y ago
    Of course, and this does get pointed out to them. But it's easier for them to extrapolate data and say, hey, we couldn't get emails of xxx thousand users, so we lost xxx amount, vs our argument that they probably lost a number of users who were annoyed by the popup. Except, you can count conversions, but you can't "measure annoyance"
  - 10y ago

bduerst 10y ago

Isn't this more of a sign that restaurant/hotel businesses are becoming more SEO savvy, and that aggregators are becoming outdated? Remember, the aggregators originally dethroned the travel agencies as the 'experts' in connecting people with what they want. Google search is in the business of providing information, meaning if they have the info available they'll provide an aggregated list of restaurants to someone who wants restaurants.

Spooky23 10y ago
I doubt it. Google has a long and storied history (since Dejanews) of fucking up user generated content on google properties. If you're looking for restaurants and hotels, TripAdvisor and Yelp are exponentially better than anything Google is going to give you.
- Shog9 10y ago
  That's the kicker though: how bad is "good enough"? If I ask Google for a donut shop and can pick the one that has devil's food chocolate donuts, who cares if Yelp would've given me better reviews; the basic information is there in front of me, and I don't have to install an app or deal with popups. I stopped using Yelp the minute they made their mobile site unusable in a pinch while pulled over on the side of the road. It doesn't matter how good the content is if I don't have the time to jump through their hoops.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    80% of my searches for this sort of thing is when I'm traveling. If I'm looking for food/lodging, I want the best possible option.
- bduerst 10y ago
  It's not user generated content though. That's the point - that these businesses are providing enough information to allow Google to aggregate them for a user with intent, rather than just pass the user off to another website aggregator.

DrScump 10y ago

The reason for this behavior is that Google is systematically destroying the SEO traffic of these sites Another reason is that with apps, they have the opportunity to harvest the phone owners private data directly (contacts, messages, seeing what competing apps are installed, etc.) Most people don't pay attention to the overbroad spectrum of access many apps demand. Specific example: Samsung changed the Gallery app (default on my GS7 to display photos from within the Camera app) to demand access to my Calendar. If I hit Deny, it aborts. My Calendar? Really?

nvr219 10y ago
How much of a problem is this on iOS?
- favorited 10y ago
  Most apps will work fine if you decline their extra permission requests, though obviously certain features may not work without them. The rest of your app has to function normally, and you definitely can't crash or otherwise programmatically quit. There are one or two apps I use that do require extra permissions to function – like the NFL Sunday Ticket app won't work unless I enable location services, because it needs to black-out local games due to broadcast rights. Some things are simply not available on iOS. For example, your app can't get a list of other apps you have installed, or send/receive text messages. Of course, every once in a while someone finds a way to abuse a different API maliciously. Apple had to limit the availability of the API used to determine if a URL scheme can be handled by the device because Twitter was spamming it to determine what apps you had installed (if your device can open a 'dominospizza://' link, they knew you had the Dominos app installed). So now you have to whitelist up to 50 URL schemes your app might try to launch.
  - DrScump 10y ago
    On Android 5.x and earlier, you had to grant all possible requested permissions up-front during installation.
- odysseus 10y ago

Analemma_ 10y ago

Here's the thing: I don't care. I don't care if Google's algorithm makes life difficult for SEOs. I don't care if it prioritizes Google's own properties unfairly. I don't care if it hurts somebody's conversion rate. All I care about is the quality of my browsing experience, which takes a nosedive every time one of these fullscreen mobile ads shows up. As long as Google's algorithm ranks results roughly in the order of how useful and pleasant they are to me - even if that's just a side-effect of their own self-interested intentions - I'm OK. In general I'm not a big fan of egoist philosophy, but in this case, all I care about is me, me, me. Google should keep doing what they're doing. It might be dictatorial, but the web has so few incentives to not load your website down with a ratchet of ever-increasing invasive crap, that any incentive pushing in the opposite direction is good, and Google is one of the only agents with the might to make that happen.

edblarney 10y ago
" I don't care if it hurts somebody's conversion rate. All I care about is the quality of my browsing experience" In the short run, it won't matter, but in the long run, it may likely affect your browsing experience on the whole. Google doesn't do anything well but search. So you are trading a slightly better search experience - which may cost you the death of several brands that provide much more than search outcomes. Trip Advisor, Yelp etc. ostensibly provide a useful service, beyond whatever Google will do. So when those companies go, we lose those greater services. The impact of Google's monopoly is something we cannot ignore. It's like 80% of Russians still support Putin, because he 'seems strong' - but Russians also don't realize how much he has de-facto degraded their standard of living. Russians would be a lot wealthier if they integrated into global markets, stop invading neighbouring territories. There'd be massive growth and opportunity for Russians - at least in globalist terms.
- RestlessMind 10y ago
  > Google doesn't do anything well but search. I beg to differ. Google also provides great products for - Maps, Email, Browser, Mobile OS, Video, Photo management. If you think neither of those are great and you can think of a better alternative, you have a lot of market share to capture. Having said that, I concur with the rest of your sentiment and would like to see services like TripAdvisor, Kayak etc flourish. Disclaimer: hold a lot of GOOG

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

bastawhiz 10y ago

Counterpoint: this is (mostly) a zero-sum game. If sitewithpopups.com gets bumped down a slot, someone else gets bumped up, and the site getting bumped up is either a.) more relevant or b.) isn't being a jerk to its users. Google's widgets aren't going away; if you're going to be mad, be mad at the widgets, not the pushing-you-to-not-be-awful. I think we can all agree that these types of overlays are terrible for users. And there are alternatives, like banners and static inline suggestions to download the app. I don't mind when sites put a "Read More" button that does little more than unhide some content, why not do the same thing to invite users to your app?

agopaul 10y ago
> and the site getting bumped up is either a.) more relevant or b.) isn't being a jerk to its users. This is the key point of SEO nowadays. Google basically awards you if you: 1) provide good (better) content 2) have good UX
Vinnl 10y ago
> be mad at the widgets, not the pushing-you-to-not-be-awful I think the point was: be mad at both :)

dntrkv 10y ago

Do you have any data to back any of these claims up? Even if your claim that Google is destroying SEO traffic to these sites is true (which I am not convinced it is) and my site is getting less traffic from Google, the last thing I want to do is make the experience shittier for the less traffic that I do get. Making my site less usable is pretty much the dumbest decision I could make at that point. I should be working on ways to better convert the traffic that I do get so they are more likely to use my product and maybe even download the app one day. Who the hell goes on a shitty site with annoying ads and decides, hey, I want a dedicated spot on my home screen for this shitty service.

mschuetz 10y ago

> But like anything complicated, this isn't a simple black and white move to benefit users. It is to me. Any page that greets me with large pop-ups and "Download our app" messages can sink into obscurity, for all I care. I'm not going to download just any app and trying to force me by making your site deliberately shitty will only make me angry at you. I realy hope this move from google includes sides that slide in a ("get our app!")-banner after a few seconds, just right so I accidantely click the banner instead of the link I wanted to click.

testloop 10y ago

This drives me absolutely crazy. If I'm forced towards downloading your app I'll simply go elsewhere. Its ridiculous to expect your users to download a 126MB app (Tripadvisor's current iOS app size) and grant it all sorts of permissions just so they can search for a hotel once a year.

hx87 10y ago

If I see their "Download our app!" page, doesn't that mean that I either went to their site directly via URL, used a non-Google link, or skipped the Google widgets? How would they increase their revenue by annoying me? If I use a site I only go there via search once.