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

Post by mattmanser » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 8:12 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #201

bad_user wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I believe this is only fair, because such websites are abusing the inner workings of Google's crawler while displaying to users something else that the crawler doesn't see. I always wondered why such tactics aren't penalized, such as websites placed behind a paywall by means of Javascript, like the Experts-Exchange of old or these websites that show slimy full page ads, sometimes with broken links. And don…

There was a time when the circumvention for the Experts-Exchange paywall was "scroll down a bit" - the data had to be visible to the googlebot, and they made it look obscured at the top, but it was all there and readable a few 'pages' down.

Post by manigandham » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 9:15 AM UTC

magicalist wrote: post #255

manigandham wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Post by iamadatawhore » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 9:27 AM UTC

Post by LoSboccacc » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 9:41 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #78

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.

"Do as I say, not as I do."

Post by LoSboccacc » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 9:43 AM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #261

vacri wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a time when the circumvention for the Experts-Exchange paywall was "scroll down a bit" - the data had to be visible to the googlebot, and they made it look obscured at the top, but it was all there and readable a few 'pages' down.

I happened to go through to my first result at the site with a dash in a year or two, it no longer does that. I wonder if they got penalised for doing it.