SEO Agency, fishbat, Discusses the January 10th Google Update for Intrusive Interstitials

June 28, 2017

SEO agency, fishbat, discusses the Jan’ 10th Google update for intrusive interstitials. If you’ve been online, you’ve seen intrusive interstitials, those pop-ups that appear when you first go to a new webpage or while you’re perusing it. Intrusive interstitials, considered to be a form of interruption marketing, has become the topic of some debate. While many businesses benefit from pop-up marketing, intrusive ads that pop-up before or during consumption of the desired content can be an annoyance for many users.

fishbat is a leading SEO agency which combines proven digital marketing strategies that include search engine optimization (SEO), digital ads, and social media optimization (SMO) to help businesses increase profits and expand brand awareness. SEO agency, fishbat, discusses the Jan’ 10th Google update for intrusive interstitials. If you’ve been online, you’ve seen intrusive interstitials, those pop-ups that appear when you first go to a new webpage or while you’re perusing it. Intrusive interstitials, considered to be a form of interruption marketing, has become the topic of some debate. While many businesses benefit from pop-up marketing, intrusive ads that pop-up before or during consumption of the desired content can be an annoyance for many users.

As always, Google puts the user experience first and is looking at ways to improve this form of advertising to deliver a better experience for the audience. Google’s interstitial update will apply to mobile devices, where the intrusive interstitials have had the most negative impact due to smaller screen sizes. Mark the date on your calendars, because on January 10, 2017, Google intends to crack down on any inappropriate use of this advertising method.

What will this mean for advertisers. Web crawlers troll all web content looking for value, bad practices, or indexing. Depending on what these internet-bots find, SEO rankings may be impacted and sites may be penalized. While things such as quality links, user engagement, high-value information, and prime use of keywords can positively impact SEO, shady practices can do just the opposite. Historically, Google has penalized sites with lower rankings for poor site performance, mobile incompatibility, hacked spam, auto-generated content, manipulating backlinks, cloaking and redirections and more. As intrusive interstitials have become an increasing user issue, many varieties of this type of marketing will now be added to that list. While it may be tempting to draw in an audience with in-your-face ads, it will not be worth the potential negative impact on Google search engine rankings. However, not all forms of interstitials will be penalized, leaving advertisers the ability to use certain forms of interstitials.
What will be impacted. The most intrusive of interstitials will be affected. Popups that obstruct the page’s main content when a user lands on the page or when the user is browsing the page may cause a drop in search engine rankings. Standalone interstitials that require the user to dismiss the ad before viewing content will also be problematic for Google. The update is for mobile searches, so if there are some interstitials that you want to retain, then they would have to be disabled for mobile devices only.
What will not be impacted. Easy-to-dismiss and interstitials with a purpose will still be allowed without penalization. Some acceptable interstitials will be those that appear due to legal requirements, easily dismissed banners that do not consume an unreasonable amount of page space, and login dialogs for sites that have unindexable content.
What should marketers be doing to prepare for this change. Marketers should be reviewing all interstitials being utilized to determine if they fall under the interruptive category or if they meet the requirements to be deemed acceptable. Intrusive popups should be updated to fall within acceptable parameters.

fishbat is a full-service online marketing company and social media agency dedicated to connecting all types of businesses with their target audiences in the most effective and efficient way. Through innovative strategies in social media management, search engine optimization (SEO), branding, web design, reputation management, and public relations, fishbat promotes a consistent and professional online voice for all of its clients.