Google’s Interstitial Ad Penalty and Its Effect on Mobile Marketers

Last year, Google put digital marketers on notice that a deep freeze was coming for interstitial ads. Now, the search giant has officially put them out in the cold, a move that will open opportunities for marketers willing to create a better mobile experience for consumers.

Starting January 10, 2017, Google will institute what some observers are calling a “pop-up penalty,” targeting ads that hide or gray-out most or all of a mobile screen. Websites displaying the intrusive advertisements on mobile devices may not rank as highly in search results. It’s a change that will leave a significant footprint; mobile use drives about 56 percent of consumer traffic to top U.S. websites, according to SimilarWeb’s State of Mobile Web in the U.S. 2015 report.

The move isn’t exactly a surprise; in 2015, the search engine giant announced it would penalize websites that displayed interstitial ads prompting users to download an app. Soon after, Apple gave Safari users the ability to install ad blocker apps that would stop interstitials on iPhones and iPads.

It’s important to note that Google will penalize a website in mobile search results only, which seems appropriate given the challenge of navigating the intrusive ads on screens as small as 4.5 inches versus ads viewed on a laptop or desktop. What’s more, interstitial advertising remains one of many signals the search engine uses to assess ranking.

However, don’t expect these mobile pop-ups to disappear completely. If you’re a company using them for age verification, cookie usage, or paywall logins, Google won’t ding you in search results. It also won’t impose a penalty if your business displays mobile banners that are easy to dismiss and don’t take up a large amount of screen space.

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by Mike Canarelli via SitePoint