Google To Start Penalizing SumoMe Welcome Mats "Intrusive Interstitials"

[CCarter]

It was only a matter of time. The Overlords at Google, I mean the Internet Police. will now start penalizing websites with "intrusive interstitials". RIP SumoMe Welcome Mat. We'll hardly missing you.

They are claiming this penalty will be only for mobile, and will get enforced on January 10th, 2017. My question is - will Forbes.com finally get penalized?

Google said "pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly."

Google explained which types of interstitial are going to be problematic, including:

• 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.

Example:

[..]

Google listed three types of interstitials that “would not be affected by the new signal” if “used responsibly.” Those types are:

• 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.

Here is a diagram from Google to convey the above points:

Source: Google warns it will crack down on “intrusive interstitials” in January
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Google is also removing the "App install Interstitial Penalty" when this rolls out since it would be a duplicate penalty.

No doubt that most implementations of the Welcome Mat are just horrible, annoying, and spammy. The ones that ask for your email immediately when you visit the website BEFORE you've even read the content are the worst. The best implementations are after 1 or 2 pages have been clicked and they actually give something away. As always Marketers ruin everything.

On one side I love this penalty cause it's going to let me actually read the freaking content - the problem is this sets a dangerous precedent where Google is essentially now telling webmasters how to design their websites. If I have a bad website experience I just don't come back to the website or dread going to the site like Forbes.com. But now, we are getting design penalties, and the full on erosion of our freedoms that come along with it. It's also a bit interesting that as they remove the maximum amount of ADs you can have for Adsense - essentially letting websites with 1000 ADs create even worse user experiences for internet users - they are rolling out penalties for user experiences.

That doesn't make sense. It seems as if when the money goes into Google's pockets the user experience can suffer, but since Google doesn't make money off the SumoMe Welcome Mats - they are now worried about user experience. Kettle meet Pot.

An easy work around would be just to disable the Interstitial on Google search visitors and leave it on for everyone else. But these small erosion of your freedoms are the reason website owners should be doing traffic leaks and making sure they've got multiple sources of traffic coming into their website instead of just relying on a single source, otherwise when Google says "jump", you'll be quick to ask "How high?"

 

[ryandiscord]

Can Google detect if you load the interstitial on the next page view? Does it matter to them at that point? It isn't blocking the original content the searcher was looking for.

 

[CCarter]

Can Google detect if you load the interstitial on the next page view?

No, not Google search. Chrome of course cause its a browser and it has to render. I think you are good google wise as well as more importantly user experience wise when doing it after the first page.

 

[built]

Thank god. Welcome mats annoy the crap out of me because 9/10 times they load too slow

 

[Ryuzaki]

I've even seen a new evolution of this annoyance akin to the "let's just add more ads" phenomenon.

You load the site and immediately a Welcome Mat appears. It has no X in the top right or anywhere. You have to realize the "No, I don't want awesome blah blah for free" fine print in actually a hyperlink to close it.

THEN, immediately another one slides up from the bottom saying "By the way, if you reconsider you can follow this giant red arrow to the bottom right corner of your screen where a 3rd version of this pop up will eternally stay"

This 3rd one can't closed, nor the 2nd one. It's on a 5 second timer and you have to wait for it to fade.

How stupid are these site owners. I immediately assume there's nothing of quality on the site if they are that desparate to capture an email. I have worse assumptions for what they do with my email, like sell it.

 

[turbin3]

If people are going to be UX rapists with their ad and conversion element serving, then they can probably look forward to a decline in revenue from users increasingly using stuff like uBlock Origin to simply pick and choose what they do and do not want to see. That or competitors will come along and build a better, more usable product. This is the way capitalism is supposed to work. So a business is shit? The market and the consumer will deal with that perfectly. Failure is punished, success is rewarded, as it should be.

Google, in many ways, has almost become the perfect representation of the inefficiency (pick a goddamn UI and stick with it FFS!) and dangers of an excessively large and oppressive federal government, yet in private business form. aka

"We're Google and we're here to protect the shit out of you, whether you like/want it or not."

LOL

On one site I occasionally use, the site has gotten to the point where there are 250+ HTTP requests per page, dozens of ads, sliders, popups, popunders, you name it, making the site nearly unusable. I've improved their page load times (well, for MYSELF only... LOL) by eliminating 100% of it, including all of the unused and unwanted elements on page (social shares, footer, never used menu items and content blocks, etc.). In point and fact, I should probably charge them for my services. hahaha

 

[Potatoe]

These are so annoying, especially the ones that pop up on each and every page. I want a chance to actually see if the content is worth subscribing for, so I like the idea of having it pop up on the 2nd or even 3rd pageview, really curious to test how that impacts opt-ins + quality of subs. Even if it means less emails, I think it's a fair trade off for not being annoying, especially for industry-folk who are checking out my site.

 

[CCarter]

I like the idea of having it pop up on the 2nd or even 3rd pageview

I'd wager that implementing it on the 2nd or 3rd page will result in longer term more engagement from the audience, less "spam" reports, and a better target audience. I really have to wonder about a person that's willing to put in their email address to join a mailing list BEFORE they've even read any of the content on the site. Is that really the type of user that you are going to want clogging your sales funnel?

And if it was for "returning" visitors, cause I know some try to make that argument, why not just have it pop up on people with cookies already installed on their browser - meaning they are a true returning visitor. If no cookie, don't pop up until page 2 or 3.

Sometimes common sense gets thrown out the window when people get a new marketing tool, and then we get situations like this and got "growth hackers" shouting "BUT THEY CONVERT!!" - well Mr. Growth Hacker, "how much of that segmented audience actually ends up becoming paying customers?" ... crickets.

 

[The Kloser]

Hypocrites. So, it is ok that Google Adsense promotes even pushing publishers to use the overlay ads?
I take that is not "Intrusive Interstitials" for the user experience, right?

This is more like we do NOT want you to engage, retain, capture in any way shape or form your new or existing base of users coming from our Google search results. More then ever, long live traffic leaks.