Google mobile rejig to hurt sites with full-page app install ads
Google is to downgrade mobile websites that bombard users with full-page app install ads as part of its mobile friendly search push.
The search giant has announced that sites hosting full page interstitials will be will downrankled in Google searches as part of wider changes to make its media more mobile friendly. The move, which will shake up the way mobile apps are advertised and distributed online, was slipped out on the Google webmaster blog following the company’s divisive rebrand.
As of now, Google is scraping the web with its ‘Mobile-Friendly Test’ to find pages with the ads described by Daniel Bathgate, Google Search software engineer, as " frustrating for users because they are expecting to see the content of the web page”.
Bathgate added: “After 1 November, mobile web pages that show an app install interstitial that hides a significant amount of content on the transition from the search result page will no longer be considered mobile-friendly.”
He urged developers to instead opt for banner ads which would not be negatively affected by the reshuffle.
When the first raft of “mobile friendly” changes were implemented earlier this year many proselytised that the ‘Mobilegeddon’ would harm behind-the-times brands and publishers.
Later in July, research from Adobe unveiled that non-optimised brand websites suffered a ten per cent traffic volume dip showing the real-world impact of such changes. Unaccounted for in the study however was how the rules helped improve the mobile web browsing experience.