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Google Will Soon Start Punishing Mobile Sites that Use Annoying App Install Ads

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Re: Google Will Soon Start Punishing Mobile Sites that Use Annoying App Install Ads

#251

Post by manigandham »

YokoZar wrote: post #246
manigandham wrote: post #243

Best to read this twitter thread: https://twitter.com/mdudas/status/638792939842469893 This only applies to page covering ads for app installs. Not other interstitials. In fact Google recently did a study showing how 69% of people leave the page when faced with an interstitial [1], yet they also recently released an updated format for their own Google overlay ad [2] (although this is for apps). They don't want to los…

Sorry, but what? What does an ad that shows between levels of angry birds on your phone have to do with ads blocking you from getting your search result? This sounds like some weird sort of misdirection attempt.

Edited for clarity:

Google is claiming to do this to improve user experience, however:

- they do these exact ads on every site they have

- they arent stopping other interstitials so sites can be just as annoying on the first page

- a site with great content should not be penalized for the site's own choices on ads

- they're forcing a change that affects everyone else except them

The PR signal doesnt match the execution. It's a monopolistic move and raises questions about their involvement in so many layers of the ads/web stack.

Re: Google Will Soon Start Punishing Mobile Sites that Use Annoying App Install Ads

#252

Post by alkonaut »

saidajigumi wrote: post #122
alkonaut wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tapatalk splash is a sure sign of a phpBB forum, meaning I won't find what I'm looking for anyway. Close tab. I can't believe those forums don't just migrate to Discourse.

> a phpBB forum, meaning I won't find what I'm looking for anyway. I'll have to disagree on this point. There are a lot of phpBB forums out there, and their quality and content varies widely as the Internet itself. Many of them, esp. some of the long-established ones, are invaluable sources for all sorts of arcana. Wikipedia doesn't even begin to touch the kinds of obscure practical knowledge embedded in the "dark we…

There are lots of phpBB forums, and their content is many times invaluable. The application itself though, is completely terrible. It's not that the information isn't there, it's the finding that sucks. For example: basic things like having the search index work properly with unicode. The chances that the php, db and app settings are all properly set up for searching for "ö" are slim to none.

I don't agree with all the design decisions of Discourse, but it was (seemingly) designed to be a straightforward migration from phpBB and other similar forums (flat ones). Just having a proper search alone is worth the migration.

Re: Google Will Soon Start Punishing Mobile Sites that Use Annoying App Install Ads

#253

Post by alkonaut »

aikah wrote: post #136
alkonaut wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tapatalk splash is a sure sign of a phpBB forum, meaning I won't find what I'm looking for anyway. Close tab. I can't believe those forums don't just migrate to Discourse.

well , it's easy , because Discourse is extremely complicated to deploy for the average joe. phpBB is ... in php , ie cheap hosting , sftp deployment ... Server side Ruby was never easy to deploy.

Yes, I agree there is someting wrong with how they created that application. They have made enough changes to the Ruby landscape for Discourse alone, that the deployment story should have been addressed. The issue atm seems to be that there are no free/cheap hosted ones.

Re: Google Will Soon Start Punishing Mobile Sites that Use Annoying App Install Ads

#255

Post by magicalist »

manigandham wrote: post #251
YokoZar wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but what? What does an ad that shows between levels of angry birds on your phone have to do with ads blocking you from getting your search result? This sounds like some weird sort of misdirection attempt.

Edited for clarity: Google is claiming to do this to improve user experience, however: - they do these exact ads on every site they have - they arent stopping other interstitials so sites can be just as annoying on the first page - a site with great content should not be penalized for the site's own choices on ads - they're forcing a change that affects everyone else except them The PR signal doesnt match the executi…

The only thing you just said that made sense was:

> the signal is that they don't want their search results to annoy users by showing them app install ads on the first hit

which is absolutely great. Well done Google.

Everything else in your post is weird and contradictory. They're apparently fine with advertising and non-annoying app install banners but they're going to make annoying app install banners less visible in search results. I'm really not seeing the problem.

> It might be good for the consumer but that's just a side effect.

See what I mean? So it's a great move and should be celebrated, but lets not congratulate Google on their motives? OK, I think we can all live with that.

Re: Google Will Soon Start Punishing Mobile Sites that Use Annoying App Install Ads

#256

Post by Kiro »

jacquesm wrote: post #37

Does that mean they'll block youtube? Try playing a video on a phone that does not have the youtube app installed, it's just about impossible to get it right, it's a roulette that's rigged with more than half the links going to the youtube app page on google play. Highly annoying since there is no reason why the youtube page of some video should even have that app installation link at all.

Isn't this a different thing? Aren't you talking about links which the phone recognise as YouTube links and open the app for you? While the article is talking about popups.

Re: Google Will Soon Start Punishing Mobile Sites that Use Annoying App Install Ads

#257

Post by zamalek »

0x0 wrote: post #34
justincormack wrote: post #10

Does this apply to "please subscribe to our stupid newsletter" that obscures many sites now?

For those I just enter webmaster@ or even the author's email if that's listed :P

I simply close the page and move on: if they don't care about obscuring the content then surely they don't have much confidence in said content and neither should I.

Re: Google Will Soon Start Punishing Mobile Sites that Use Annoying App Install Ads

#258

Post by alkonaut »

abritinthebay wrote: post #153
schneidmaster wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may have formerly been the case but at least since they switched to Docker based installs it's incredibly easy. I migrated an ancient vBulletin forum over to Discourse last week and had no problems with the basic (fairly short) instructions. https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INST...

> since they switched to Docker based installs it's incredibly easy For you. A developer. The average deployer of a PHPBB forum clicks a button on their cheap host and sets the options in the admin page. They don't even have the foggiest idea what Docker even is.

It's not very easy for an average developer either. I have worked 12 years as a developer, know my way reasonably around linux, and find docker about as easy to understand as chinese.

Re: Google Will Soon Start Punishing Mobile Sites that Use Annoying App Install Ads

#260

Post by mattmanser »

manigandham wrote: post #243

Best to read this twitter thread: https://twitter.com/mdudas/status/638792939842469893 This only applies to page covering ads for app installs. Not other interstitials. In fact Google recently did a study showing how 69% of people leave the page when faced with an interstitial [1], yet they also recently released an updated format for their own Google overlay ad [2] (although this is for apps). They don't want to los…

69% of people using YouTube leave when faced with an interstitial.

Different statistic.

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