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Allyson Kapin 6 min read

Google Will Penalize Popups on Mobile Sites

Nonprofits raise a lot of money off of homepage and interior page popups and overlays, especially during year-end fundraising and urgent campaigns. Google recently announced though that starting January 2017, they will penalize websites that use popups on mobile as they find it intrusive and a poort user experience. "This can be problematic on mobile devices where screens are often smaller, said Google in blog post

Google will penalize the following popups: 

  • Showing a popup that covers the main content, either immediately after the user navigates to a page from the search results, or while they are looking through the page.
  • Displaying a standalone interstitial that the user has to dismiss before accessing the main content.
  • Using a layout 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.

An example of an intrusive popup

An example of an intrusive standalone interstitial

Another example of an intrusive standalone interstitial

 

Google WILL NOT penalize the following popups:

  • Interstitials that appear to be in response to a legal obligation, such as for cookie usage or for age verification.
  • Login dialogs on sites where content is not publicly indexable. For example, this would include private content such as email or unindexable content that is behind a paywall.
  • Banners that use a reasonable amount of screen space and are easily dismissible. For example, the app install banners provided by Safari and Chrome are examples of banners that use a reasonable amount of screen space.

An example of an interstitial for cookie usage

An example of an interstitial for age verification

                                 An example of a banner that uses a reasonable amount of screen space

I don't typically recommend popups on mobile, but this new policy has me worried that Google will soon penalize popups on desktop, which could negatively impact SEO for nonprofit websites.  At the same time, it's important to remember that there are 100+ indicators that impact website search rank. "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," said Google. 

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Allyson Kapin

Allyson has been named one of "Top Tech Titans" by the Washingtonian, one of the Most Influential Women In Tech by Fast Company, and one of the top 30 women entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter by Forbes for her leadership role in technology and social media. As Founding Partner of Rad Campaign, she leads the firm's client and online strategic services. For over a decade Allyson has helped non-profit organizations and political campaigns create dynamic and award-winning websites and online marketing and recruitment campaigns. She works side-by-side with her clients to meet their web needs and maximize their online effectiveness to create real world impact.

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