Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrusive Pop-Up Ads • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrusive Pop-Up Ads

#371

Post by frandroid » Fri, Jan 20, 2017, 6:22 PM UTC

alphonsegaston wrote: post #334

cygned wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pinterest is even worse - in Google Images, images are listed but once you enter the site, you're blocked from accessing whatever you have been looking for.

What's even worse about Pinterest is that almost all the images are derived from an outside source, so you're following this insane route to get at the original content: source image-> indexed by Pinterest -> Google index of Pinterest index -> Pinterest page -> source image. I can't believe that Google is incapable of navigating around this, but Pinterest would probably block them from indexing if they did.

Pinterest would be foolish to block indexing by Google, though.

Re: Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrusive Pop-Up Ads

#372

Post by webartisan » Fri, Jan 20, 2017, 6:30 PM UTC

LordDragonfang wrote: post #265

webartisan wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketing teams are usually data driven rather than user experience driven. How does one counter the argument that "anecdotal evidence suggests people who sign up with us are 2x more likely to convert, so let's force more sign ups to increase revenue".

Do these people ever consider that they might have their causation backwards?

Of course, and this does get pointed out to them.

But it's easier for them to extrapolate data and say, hey, we couldn't get emails of xxx thousand users, so we lost xxx amount, vs our argument that they probably lost a number of users who were annoyed by the popup.

Except, you can count conversions, but you can't "measure annoyance"

Re: Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrusive Pop-Up Ads

#373

Post by webartisan » Fri, Jan 20, 2017, 6:30 PM UTC

LordDragonfang wrote: post #265

webartisan wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketing teams are usually data driven rather than user experience driven. How does one counter the argument that "anecdotal evidence suggests people who sign up with us are 2x more likely to convert, so let's force more sign ups to increase revenue".

Do these people ever consider that they might have their causation backwards?

Of course, and this does get pointed out to them.

But it's easier for them to extrapolate data and say, hey, we couldn't get emails of xxx thousand users, so we lost xxx amount, vs our argument that they probably lost a number of users who were annoyed by the popup.

The fact is, that you can count conversions, but you can't "measure annoyance". And hence, the argument rests.

Re: Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrusive Pop-Up Ads

#374

Post by alphonsegaston » Fri, Jan 20, 2017, 6:37 PM UTC

frandroid wrote: post #371

alphonsegaston wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's even worse about Pinterest is that almost all the images are derived from an outside source, so you're following this insane route to get at the original content: source image-> indexed by Pinterest -> Google index of Pinterest index -> Pinterest page -> source image. I can't believe that Google is incapable of navigating around this, but Pinterest would probably block them from indexing if they did.

Pinterest would be foolish to block indexing by Google, though.

Yeah, I would think so too, but if you spend any time with their apps, you can see how user hostile they are. The UI is awful, data is incredibly difficult to export. They really want to lock you into their narrow channels.

Re: Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrusive Pop-Up Ads

#375

Post by alphonsegaston » Fri, Jan 20, 2017, 6:38 PM UTC

nommm-nommm wrote: post #358

alphonsegaston wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I frequently have to delete these kinds of HTML nodes off the page just to see if it actually has something I want. I debated rolling my own extension for the common sites where I run into this, but ended up just throwing up my hands at the absurdity of the situation.

I just hit CTRL-U to read the pages source which contains the text content. Now that I think about it I wonder if reader mode would work. Hey, maybe you can just set your user agent to Google Bot.

Yeah I do this too for text stuff. I'm an artist, so I'm often times looking for images though.

Re: Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrusive Pop-Up Ads

#376

Post by rhizome » Fri, Jan 20, 2017, 6:44 PM UTC

enjo wrote: post #149

lathiat wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had many sites pop this up within seconds of being on the site. Though the attention span of some might be short, I suspect the data collected by these surveys is highly unhelpful simply because you have not yet experienced the product. Given they're all from the same company usually whose name escapes me right now, you'd think they'd be better at it?

One of my lobby conversations at a SEM conference dealt with those quick survey popups. The guy I was talking to swore that by putting one on their landing pages conversion increased by like 30%. His theory was that it helps to refocus users who are about to bounce. Give them a second to digest the page and right before they click the back button bring SOMETHING up to grab their attention. They'll just click the surv…

The guy I was talking to swore that by putting one on their landing pages conversion increased by like 30%.

Yeah, they all say that. The question is: if that's true, then why aren't more sites using "survey popups'?

Re: Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrusive Pop-Up Ads

#377

Post by webartisan » Fri, Jan 20, 2017, 6:46 PM UTC

The problem doesn't seem to be related only to web. These dark interstitial patterns are present in every platform.

Recently used Ola's (Uber's main competitor in India) native app on android, and right when you're about to book a pool ride, at times, they'll show you a full page interstitial advertising pool rides. And if that wasn't ridiculous already, they provide no way to cancel the popup. The only way to proceed is by clicking "Try share".

And when you do so, it throws a generic "Uh Oh, Something went wrong error", and you're basically stuck without a ride.

Re: Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrusive Pop-Up Ads

#378

Post by rhizome » Fri, Jan 20, 2017, 6:54 PM UTC

asdfasdfa11112 wrote: post #241

Spooky23 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They take a fixed fee per ticket. It's a good model. Like most ticketing operations, they've built a niche monopoly. If you want to buy tickets online, they are usually the only game in town. If the obnoxious ads annoy you, their attitude is basically "fuck you, drive to the mall and miss your movie".

This is called a "moat". Build it for your company, it's a good thing for an entrepreneur. To be significantly successful, you need to stop thinking this way. Start thinking about what benefits you & your company. It may seem like contempt for the consumer, and perhaps it is. But it's also possible the consumer is irrational and you can benefit in the short and long term. I work in marketing, and have seen scant evid…

I get the feeling that nobody (untapped-market alert) measures whether they're trying to optimize something users don't really care about.

Re: Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrusive Pop-Up Ads

#379

Post by sparky_z » Fri, Jan 20, 2017, 7:30 PM UTC

spc476 wrote: post #234

sparky_z wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming they make money on ticket sales. Maybe all that money goes to the theater? If so, the ads are completely rational.

Movie theaters make no money on tickets---it's concessions where the money is. That's why it's $10 for a small bag of popcorn and a drink (which costs the theater pennies on the dollars).

They make plenty of money on ticket sales. Just not much profit on tickets. They still rely on getting the ticket sales money on order to buy the rights to show movies and keep the lights on. They can't just give that up.

Re: Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrusive Pop-Up Ads

#380

Post by CaptSpify » Fri, Jan 20, 2017, 7:32 PM UTC

st3v3r wrote: post #363

CaptSpify wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did anyone say that they can't get paid for their work?

The guy who said that he wants paywalled sites punished for trying to get paid for their work.

Nobody said that. OP said that he wishes google would penalize sites with paywalls, but that has nothing to do with sites getting paid for their work.

There are many ways to get paid for your work without using a bait-and-switch method where you show google a different page than the one you are showing to your users.