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[scribblrs] Google Has Finally Started Penalizing Mobile Websites With Intrusive Pop-Up Ads

2K views 47 replies 26 participants last post by  Dragonsyph 
#1 ·
https://www.scribblrs.com/google-now-penalizing-mobile-ads/

Quote:
Thanks to new regulations, any mobile web page that uses interstitials or pop-up ads will see their Google ranking tumble. Originally announced back in August 2016, Google confirmed that the new algorithm update has officially gone live as of January 10.

Google is targeting what they call "problematic transitions," and gave three specific examples of pages that would be affected. The first is pages that show a pop up that opens right after a user clicks a link or as they scroll through a page, hiding the page's content. Also affected are pages that show an interstitial ad that must be closed out before the user gets to their desired content and pages that keep content "under the fold" with an interstitial on the top of the page. Google has noted that "small" pop ups won't be affected by these rules, but they didn't give any details about what specific size constitutes "small."
 
#3 ·
Thank God. It's bad enough on the desktop. It's even more horrible on your phone.

Even number of very popular tech sites do it.
 
#6 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by umeng2002 View Post

Thank God. It's bad enough on the desktop. It's even more horrible on your phone.

Even number of very popular tech sites do it.
The worst offenders are the ones that lock you out of site content because you use an ad blocker. Drives me crazy, ended up dumping several news sources.

Hopefully this move forces sites to find alternative sources of income instead of relying on ads.
 
#7 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by lombardsoup View Post

The worst offenders are the ones that lock you out of site content because you use an ad blocker. Drives me crazy, ended up dumping several news sources.
Tweaktown is the worst. If they detect ad or script blockers, they'll redirect to a page begging you to disable them in like ten different languages. Not only that, the previous page you were viewing isn't loaded in your browser history, so the back button doesn't work. Forbes isn't much better, though they aren't exactly a tech site, and I can hardly get them to work on my vanilla browser without any extensions at all. There's another site I do like, CPU-World, but the way it handles script blockers is obnoxious. In their database, things like clockspeed and core counts are loaded through HTML, but other specs like cache are loaded through Javascript. If it weren't such a good database I wouldn't browse it on principle with a move like that. There's always Intel Ark but AMD doesn't have their own version.
frown.gif


Contrast with a site like Stack Exchange where the staff not only understands but also encourages ad blocker use and actively removes obnoxious ads. There's another site, I think TechPowerUp, where their ads are nothing more than static image links. While they make it through an adblocker, they're so inoffensive and there's so little scripting that I really can't care. OCN also handles it well with the Overclocked account: either pay a yearly subscription or earn 250 rep to remove ads (or get a shiny badge
tongue.gif
). The rep thing is really interesting to me. I'm not actually sure what the official stance on it is, but my interpretation is that users with that much rep contribute so much to the community and site that the traffic they bring in far outweighs their own ad impressions.

I just think it's fascinating that companies can take such dramatically different approaches to ads, and only one group is really driving ad blocker development. I'm also extremely happy that even Apple has allowed content blockers in Safari (old news, I know) and users no longer have to use third-party browsers (usually with in-app purchases because freeware on real OSes == microtransactions on mobile OSes). Mobile ads in particular are infuriating because mobile connections are so much more likely to have datacaps and because there's no guarantee the signal to the tower is any good.
 
#10 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by CynicalUnicorn View Post

I just think it's fascinating that companies can take such dramatically different approaches to ads, and only one group is really driving ad blocker development. I'm also extremely happy that even Apple has allowed content blockers in Safari (old news, I know) and users no longer have to use third-party browsers (usually with in-app purchases because freeware on real OSes == microtransactions on mobile OSes). Mobile ads in particular are infuriating because mobile connections are so much more likely to have datacaps and because there's no guarantee the signal to the tower is any good.
Depends on the company. Some have moved on from ads and adapted to other revenue streams, others refuse and stick to the old ways.
 
#11 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by starliner View Post

While I understand why most people would think this is good, I think it is bad, very bad. It sets a presidence that Google can dictate site content by dangling repercussions at them. This smells like the beginning of an anti-trust lawsuit...
Ads=Bad. Anything that reduces them=Good.
 
#12 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by essanbee View Post

Ads=Bad. Anything that reduces them=Good.
No, that is wrong. The means always needs to be examined least it lead down a bad road. This can very easily be applied to other things.

Alternatively you could say "terrorists=bad, anything that reduces them=good". Now look where we are with digital surveillance...

It is not Google position to regulate the internet.

Edit: If they were entirely altruistic about, sure it might be fine. But Google has a very large stake in the ad business. This might be just another push to gets site using adsense.
 
#13 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by starliner View Post

No, that is wrong. The means always needs to be examined least it lead down a bad road. This can very easily be applied to other things.

Alternatively you could say "terrorists=bad, anything that reduces them=good". Now look where we are with digital surveillance...

It is not Google position to regulate the internet.
This is America. We don't negotiate with advertisers.
 
#15 ·
Ads=Bad. Anything that reduces them, and doesn't have catastrophic unintended consequences for anyone but the advertiser, and adheres mostly to the Geneva Convention=Good
 
#16 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by starliner View Post

While I understand why most people would think this is good, I think it is bad, very bad. It sets a presidence that Google can dictate site content by dangling repercussions at them. This smells like the beginning of an anti-trust lawsuit...
Its interesting you mentioned this. Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes advocated an anti-trust suit against Google last year for this very reason, and is now being considered for the Federal Trade Commission chairman spot. The previous chair doesn't step down until Feb 10th.
 
#17 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by essanbee View Post

Ads=Bad. Anything that reduces them, and doesn't have catastrophic unintended consequences for anyone but the advertiser, and adheres mostly to the Geneva Convention=Good
The ads aren't going away though. Reread the source
wink.gif
. If the sites decide to comply with google, then they just switch the ads to a different form. Still go ads.
 
#18 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by starliner View Post

While I understand why most people would think this is good, I think it is bad, very bad. It sets a presidence that Google can dictate site content by dangling repercussions at them. This smells like the beginning of an anti-trust lawsuit...
Google has been dictating site content for years.
 
#19 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by CynicalUnicorn View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by lombardsoup View Post

The worst offenders are the ones that lock you out of site content because you use an ad blocker. Drives me crazy, ended up dumping several news sources.
Tweaktown is the worst. If they detect ad or script blockers, they'll redirect to a page begging you to disable them in like ten different languages.
As this was news to me, i just tried opening some articles on tweaktown to see what would happen. Nothing like you described. Is there some sort of page or article i'm supposed to be looking at? It's behaving as expected on my end with ScriptSafe and uBlock Origin.
 
#20 ·
'Bout time, I was starting to think that my phone had a virus because it has been so bad. can't even use the news app any longer, pop-up city... " congratulations, you won...."
rolleyes.gif
 
#21 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by ToTheSun! View Post

As this was news to me, i just tried opening some articles on tweaktown to see what would happen. Nothing like you described. Is there some sort of page or article i'm supposed to be looking at? It's behaving as expected on my end with ScriptSafe and uBlock Origin.
Scroll down. It should hit you midpage.
 
#23 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by starliner View Post

While I understand why most people would think this is good, I think it is bad, very bad. It sets a presidence that Google can dictate site content by dangling repercussions at them. This smells like the beginning of an anti-trust lawsuit...
This.

Google acting like the internet police infuriates me. They're just another corporation with no authority over anyone else. They should be slapped hard down back to the ground where they belong.

Policing is the police's job, not some corporation's.
 
#24 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Artikbot View Post

They're just another corporation with no authority over anyone else.
Not true. Google is the de facto arbiter of what is acceptable content by virtue of being the primary source of website traffic.
 
#26 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Artikbot View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by starliner View Post

While I understand why most people would think this is good, I think it is bad, very bad. It sets a presidence that Google can dictate site content by dangling repercussions at them. This smells like the beginning of an anti-trust lawsuit...
This.

Google acting like the internet police infuriates me. They're just another corporation with no authority over anyone else. They should be slapped hard down back to the ground where they belong.

Policing is the police's job, not some corporation's.
as someone who has done a few sites here and there, google has been dictating how to achieve higher search results on their engine for decades.

no one is trying to police the internet.
rolleyes.gif
 
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