Google’s army of coders is beginning to penalize businesses that traffic in pop-up ads.
illustration: ©iStock.com/Hipspeeds
Google is cracking down on mobile websites that intentionally degrade the online browsing experience for the rest of us. Starting this month, the search engine giant plans to push any mobile website down in its search engine returns if it finds that the site deliberately harasses visitors with bothersome pop-up ads.
“It’s hard to believe that browsing the web on a mobile phone can still feel so slow, with users abandoning sites that just don’t load quickly,” says Nick Zukoski, a Google software engineer.
Besides attempting to foster faster download speeds, Google’s crackdown also is seen by many analysts as a response to the proliferation of free ad-blocking plug-ins Web cruisers are installing on their browsers.
Essentially, many online users are fed up with intrusive ads deliberately designed to interrupt their interaction with content.
Last year, nearly 70 million online users were estimated to be cruising with special browser plug-ins designed to block intrusive online advertising, according to eMarketer.com. Moreover, the analysis site found that another 17 million Web users were expected to join the ranks of the “advertising disaffected” by the close of 2017.
These droves of people disgusted with Web advertising concern Google, which draws virtually all its revenue from online advertising.
“In today’s world of personalized content, being forced to watch an ad that has no relevance is a missed opportunity and feels increasingly intrusive on precious screen time,” says Gavin Mann, industry lead, global broadcast industry for Accenture, a worldwide professional online services company.
“Industry needs to do everything possible to make ads less of an infringement on screen time, by building on early successes that deliver targeted, relevant and entertaining ads — in a creative style appreciated by the individual,” Mann adds.
A study released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau found that two-thirds of ad blocker users in the U.S. said they’d consider abandoning the tool if the advertising community cleaned up its act.
“Bringing ad-blocking consumers back into the fold is the establishment of a LEAN scoring system, which will allow for user experience to be measured against clear-cut benchmarks,” says Alanna Gombert, a senior vice president at IAB.
Essentially, that scoring system recommends eliminating the same kind of pop-ads Google will be penalizing.
It also advises businesses to forgo planting ads that auto-play audio and/or video when a user interacts with a Web page or ad. It suggests that businesses ensure ads don’t slow Web browsing; they also should ensure ads are malware-free.
Another major no-no: Avoid refusing to show content to users who are currently using ad blockers, according to Gombert.
Of course, it may take awhile (if ever) before the lion’s share of advertisers actually adopts the IAB’s scoring system and produces friendlier ads.
In the meantime, Google is dead-set on moving ahead with its ad penalization program. Specific businesses in the crosshairs are those that use pop-up ads that appear from nowhere when you’re browsing content, and force you to search for a tiny “X” to click on to stop the distraction, according to Doantam Phan, product manager for Google.
Taboo, too, will be the ads you find already hovering over a page when you click there from a search engine link.
Also penalized will be businesses that attempt to force-feed ads to visitors by placing ads “above the fold” on the home page of a website.
But amid all the discipline, there will be some exceptions, including:
- Pop-up content that must be legally displayed, such as a site’s policy cookies or warnings to minors that they are prohibited from visiting the site.
- Login dialogue boxes that need to pop up when a visitor needs to enter private credentials, such as an ID and password, to access content deeper in the site.
- Banners that pop up on a page that confine their display to a “reasonable” amount of space on the page.
Tips for compliance
If you’re looking to comply with Google’s new rules — as well as embrace Google’s mission to make mobile Web browsing as fast and effortless as possible — check out a companion initiative from Google. The Accelerated Mobile Pages Project (AMP) offers design tips for mobile pages that result in quicksilver download times.
“To us — and many in the industry — it was clear that something needed to change,” Google’s Zukoski says. “That was why we started working with the Accelerated Mobile Pages Project, an open-source initiative to improve the mobile web experience for everyone.”
The AMP Project offers free, download-friendly Web components businesses can use to embed rich media objects in their pages and digital advertising, such as video, social media, display advertising or website analytics, according to Zukoski.
These pages also enjoy fast download speeds with their ability to be cached in the cloud. This significantly reduces the amount of time the AMP content needs to appear on a phone or other mobile device.
Under the open-source initiative, any company can use cloud-caching services. Google, for example, offers a free cloud-caching service that any business can use to store AMP-compliant mobile pages. Under the arrangement, a company still controls all its content; its ads simply download faster because they’re stored in Google’s cache.
“Publishers increase revenue with better-performing ads, while ensuring that users can get back to their content anytime they want,” says Vamsee Jasti, AMP Project product manager.
For company design techs interested in “AMP-ifying” their pages, check out the AMP HTML specification for AMP pages on GitHub.
Pest management firms using WordPress community layouts will want to check out a special plug-in that automatically generates accelerated AMP-built pages of WordPress posts.
The open-source AMP community is working on a way for AMP-built pages to support common website analytics programs.
“Users are more likely to click on ads they may be interested in if they know they’ll have a positive experience,” Jasti says. With AMP, “advertisers benefit from increased user engagement and higher conversion rates.”
Joe Dysart, an internet speaker and business consultant based in Manhattan, can be contacted at joe@joedysart.com.
Leave A Comment