● Insights On Google’s Recent Mobile

Interstitial Penalty

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Providing an excellent user experience has always been the name and game for

Google. And this keeps reflecting in all of their updates, optimizations and services. In

fact, whatever they do is done with the sole intent of streamlining the user experience.

The world is gradually progressing towards a world that will be mobile-only, so Google’s

efforts towards optimizing the user experience are quite fitting. Google has introduced a

Mobile Interstitial Penalty for the same.

Due to this, those websites which do not have optimization for mobile devices will be

next to suffer in terms of ranking. This is why Google has now imposed a penalty on

mobile interstitial ads (intrusive) with effect from January 10th 2016. What his penalty

will do is lower the ranking of such websites which in turn will affect the traffic to those

websites

What are Mobile Interstitial Ads?

While surfing the net on mobile, you must have come across some annoying pop-up

ads. Now, according to Google such advertisements can prove to be troublesome for

devices with comparatively smaller screens. Google also adds that in pages where the

page content is not easily accessible due to such ads will also face penalty and won’t

rank as high. The reason being it robs the users of having a great user experience and

Google frowns upon it.

Here is a pictorial example by Google of ads which will suffer Google’s Mobile Interstitial

Penalty:

Guidelines by Google for its Mobile Interstitial Penalty:

Back in 2015, a similar penalty was imposed by Google concerning the apps. There the

interstitial apps were on fire. They were running around in huge numbers. To simplify

the search results for the users to get them to the right content, this mobile interstitial

penalty will be put in place. Examples of such sites being:

● If the pop-up ad covers the main content. Either immediately or after a while or

while the user is navigating the page.

● Showing a standalone interstitial that needs to be dismissed by the user in order

to proceed to the site.

● Using such a layout where the portion of the page above the fold appears similar

to a standalone interstitial and hides the original content underneath.

Still, this in no way means that all mobile ads are going to be hurt. Some interstitial ads

are still acceptable and won’t face the wrath of Google’s Penalty. Here’s a pictorial

example of them:

However, its still not the end of the world if your website faces one of these violations.

Having a great website with excellent content might still save you a fair lot from these

infractions. You can still rank and perform well by focusing on great content. This is

another subtle, but major indicator by Google. This is another one of those times when

Google takes action for enhancing mobile experience for the user.