Do popups hurt rankings? A question that as of January 10th 2017 has a definitive answer – YES!
As the internet has evolved, so have marketing strategies. Popups first came on the scene in the late 1990’s and quickly evolved from having a standard ad format to having formats that would blink, play audio or video, and even become so intrusive that they’d confuse site users and get them to click on things they didn’t want to click on. On mobile the problems and confusion popups are creating is even more rampant.
In response to this Google has decided to kill intrusive mobile “interstatials” (a sophisticated name for popup). In a recent article published by Google they state that “In Google Search, our goal is to help users quickly find the best answers to their questions, regardless of the device they’re using.”
To sum it up – if a user goes to your site looking for an answer and they are presented with a popup that is hard to exit out of – your site will be penalized and your rankings will drop.
Here are a few examples:
WHAT NOT TO DO
WHAT TO DO
Hopefully this blog has helped you answer the question “Do popups hurt rankings?”
If you want more information on the topic and to find out if the popups you are using will violate Google’s new policy come January 10th read: Helping Users Easily Access Content On Mobile or give us a call.
