
Google will punish sites that use annoying pop-up ads - ashitlerferad
https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/23/12610890/google-search-punish-pop-ups-interstitial-ads
======
Animats
Does this mean they'll get rid of their own popup ad:

    
    
       Get to Google faster. 
       Switch your default search engine to Google. 
       Yes, show me.
    

There's not even a "No" option.

(Google _is_ my default search engine. I just have their tracking blocked, so
they can't check this. Lame.)

~~~
rhizome
Watch live TV with YouTube Red.

~~~
Dylan16807
Wait, youtube red or youtube tv? Because one of those is a lot more expensive
than the other.

~~~
rhizome
One of my truisms is that Google is bad at product, so for all I know, pricing
aside, those two are the same thing.

~~~
Dylan16807
They're too busy having google music and youtube red already being the same
thing.

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tyingq
Google is very concerned about ads that visually block text content. But
somehow forcing ads in front of videos on YouTube isn't the same exact thing?

Both force an ad to be looked at before granting you access to the content you
came for. I don't get the distinction.

~~~
mikewhy
Not to defend the ad industry, but I don't think these are equivalent. YouTube
ads don't block content so much as they delay it, much like inline ads.

The equivalent YouTube ad would be if it started playing and didn't pause the
video you're trying to watch.

~~~
tyingq
Not sure I understand. Both are an overlay blocking content. I suspect Google
would still punish an interstitial overlay with a countdown timer that
dismissed it. If you don't click, YouTube sometimes makes you watch 30+
seconds of ads.

Here's Google's post about it:
[https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-
easi...](https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/08/helping-users-easily-
access-content-on.html)

~~~
vertex-four
I've seen a couple of five minute long ads on Youtube. I really doubt anyone
intentionally watches them.

~~~
charrondev
To be honest I've seen a couple advertisements that I watched the full ~5
minutes. Both were game trailers that were really interesting. I would have
rather had a "click here to view the actual trailer video instead of the ad
version" button though. I was sold after the first 2 minutes, but couldn't see
the full name of the game until the end.

~~~
hobarrera
Game trailers as ads?

Over 95% of the stuff I watch on Youtube is gameplays, collagehumor and tech
reviews, yet all my ads are diapers or clothing softeners. I've no idea why
their algorithm sucks so much for my account.

~~~
Operyl
Unless they figure you’re already going to buy it and don’t bother targeting
you?

------
girishso
Will they also punish those websites with "activate notifications" pop ups?

I'm so tired of those and there seems no way of blocking, even after blocking
notifications in Chrome settings.

~~~
Larrikin
Firefox let's you permanently block a site from asking for the notification
permission

~~~
ceejayoz
I've seen a number of sites prompting via a modal that _isn 't_ the browser's
built-in functionality. If you say no, it just prompts again in a day or two.
If you say yes, _then_ you get the built-in (blockable) "enable
notifications?" prompt.

~~~
synotna
Most notably Facebook

------
DerfNet
I work for an e-commerce company. This absolutely brutalized our sales until
we made significant changes to our layout.

I understand that this instance is seen as a net positive for the end user,
but Google should not have the power to force websites to conform to whatever
Google decides is the new standard, or become irrelevant.

The end user should be deciding what is and isn't worthwhile content, or where
to shop, or what have you. Not Google.

~~~
mythrwy
Not you either.

If people come in through Google because they are searching for something and
instead of arriving at the content that was advertised in search results, see
a content covering popup, that's not really informed decision making. I think
Google has legitimate right to rank sites that do this lower.

~~~
weirdstuff
That's more ok for a smaller outfit, but now that Google is abusing their
monopolistic market position it's not as ok.

Not to worry, the days of the U.S. government busting up monopolies seem
behind us.

~~~
taysic
If users heard there were better results elsewhere though, they would switch
from Google. However, it is more likely that by doing this Google prevents
itself from being taken over by a competitor that creates this feature.

------
bcardarella
This is from over a year ago

~~~
cpncrunch
Google later confirmed that the update went live in Jan:

[http://searchengineland.com/google-confirms-rolling-
mobile-i...](http://searchengineland.com/google-confirms-rolling-mobile-
intrusive-interstitials-penalty-yesterday-267408)

I actually just added a full-screen video popup to a site a few days ago, and
I made it so that it won't appear to googlebot. This wasn't for deceptive
purposes, just because it wasn't relevant. I only show the video once to
users, and it doesn't appear when they go back to the site...it's just a
walkthrough of our products, which many people seem to need. I suspect many
sites will check for googlebot and not show their popups to avoid this
penalty.

~~~
jeromegv
Showing something different to GoogleBot than your users is against terms of
service, all good until you get caught.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
You're not getting "caught", and Google can fuck right off with any "terms of
service" that I never agreed to about how I respond when they scrape my site
without permission.

I know that there are practical concerns here, but Google has done a
_masterful_ job of shaping the conversation so that many people think anything
not sanctioned by Almighty Google with regard to SEO (let alone actual
"blackhat" tactics) is illegal or immoral.

~~~
Karunamon
You’re giving permission to scrape by way of having a page accessible to the
general public. If googlebot is bothering you so much, install a two line
robots.txt and it’ll go away.

~~~
jiggunjer
robots can ignore your /robots.txt.

~~~
Karunamon
_Google_ bot, and every other search engine robot of note. Putting a page up
on the public internet includes the risk that it may be visited.

------
imgabe
How about the sites with the obnoxious "sign up for our newsletter" pop over?

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ccleary00
If they can punish those Sumo Me fullscreen popups that ask for your email
everytime you're 2 seconds into the page, that would be great.

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robtaylor
This was something from January (2017) and trailed in 2016.

It also covers the adsense product - so using google product can affect your
google rank.

HOWEVER there are many many news websites that have not been penalised despite
a full range of pop ups, interstitial and screen take over adverts.

Anyone from Google able to explain why there is such a discrepancy?

------
newusertoday
Any idea what would happen to chat boxes that pop up on companies websites?
they don't block the content and are there to interact with customers (think
olark). Does anyone know if that would lead to lower search ranking as well?

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QAPereo
It doesn't matter, ad blocking is here to stay and expand, and it's a ticking
clock on this nonsense. How many HN users ever see an ad at this point?

~~~
zeep
If some people get it their way and the web becomes like a binary blob, it
might become harder to block ads across the board.

~~~
QAPereo
That is a terrifying proposition, but it might also be the required impetus
for an alternative to the web actually taking off, and eventually, over.

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kazinator
Google will take a shot at a 1990's problem that desktop browsers have done
away so long ago, that people hardly remember?

This seems rather analogous to digging up a corpse to give it a spiteful kick
in the ribs and bury it again.

Given all the SEO spam in the Google search index, it is a misplaced priority
to make a target out of sites with popups.

------
saosebastiao
This is good. Also, can they punish sites that download 50MB of bullshit
before showing a word on the page?

~~~
ChuckMcM
They do that with amp.

~~~
Karunamon
And people scream about it, even though it’s an unambiguously better
experience for the user .

~~~
tyingq
That's how a trojan horse works. It has to have an outward reason to invite it
in.

------
siliconc0w
This is great. Ideally you look at the % of the page with actual content and %
of the page with 'everything else' and sort by % content. Hopefully, this
would motivate sites to compete with one another for cleaner UX.

------
kindawinda
i dont know why they always says this and never fulfill. search 'free porn'
and youll see pornhub.com and xnxx.com and they have popups but never get
deranked.

~~~
ceejayoz
They may well be penalizing those sites, but in the porn world, _everyone 's_
using those sorts of abusive ads, and being _equally_ bumped down in rank.

------
z3t4
I wonder how they detect if something is annoying.

------
zeep
How can sites punish Google? I guess they could switch to non-popup ads that
aren't powered by Google...

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kutkloon7
While I hate ads, I also think google has way too much power already, and this
is not a healthy development.

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chinathrow
That is laughable. They push full screen pop-up ads within AdSense itself...

~~~
amelius
Is this true? Afaik I've never seen full screen Google ads (or perhaps I have,
but just didn't identify them as such).

~~~
robtaylor
They do and have said it would be a negative ranking factor.

So yes, one google product can result in a penalty with another. You will
probably make a few quid more on adsense though.

------
shp0ngle
Can they please also punish sites that cover whole page with that stupid
cookie warning, thanks.

~~~
jacquesm
The legally required one?

~~~
jiggunjer
...that wouldn't even be necessary if they didn't try to mine the marrow out
of you.

------
dredmorbius
2016 story FYI.

------
naraniano
Like this one I get every now and then across all of their services?
[http://i.imgur.com/f5NS6GQ.png](http://i.imgur.com/f5NS6GQ.png)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I wouldn't call that an ad. Nor would I condemn Google occasionally reminding
users to check their privacy settings. In fact, I encourage it.

~~~
cm2187
That's not google reminding you of privacy settings (in fact if you want to
change those this menu is highly impractical with a lot of nesting). This is
google making you agree with their T&C to go any further.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Isn't that effectively a legal requirement? That users must make some sort of
actual confirmation step to acknowledge the terms for them to be legally
enforceable?

I mean, look at my submission/comment history, I'm literally _the_ voice of
Google criticism on this website. But it's hard to see how this little
diversion has to do with pop-up ads. It's not advertising, first and foremost.

~~~
naraniano
I don't know of any websites that force me to agree to a privacy policy so I
can access it while logged off.

~~~
asddddd
Most websites aren't being fined billions by your government!

------
smegel
Coming weeks after headless Chrome is released, wonder if there is a
connection.

~~~
borplk
Not sure what you mean. Google using Chrome headless for crawling? I'm sure
their crawling infrastructure was already more than capable.

~~~
smegel
How else would they detect popups?

~~~
borplk
I'm sure by now Google wouldn't need Chrome headless to be released for them
to have that capability.

------
zo1
Not as bad as Google punishing sites that host conservative/controversial
authors and viewpoints:

[http://www.thelibertyconservative.com/google-issues-
ultimatu...](http://www.thelibertyconservative.com/google-issues-ultimatum-to-
the-liberty-conservative-censor-your-content-or-lose-all-ad-revenue/)

