Live data from Hacker News

Google will punish sites that use annoying pop-up ads

theverge.com

31–40 of 123 posts

Re: Google will punish sites that use annoying pop-up ads

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google later confirmed that the update went live in Jan: http://searchengineland.com/google-confirms-rolling-mobile-i... I actually just added a full-screen video popup to a site a few days ago, and I made it so that it won't appear to googlebot. This wasn't for deceptive purposes, just because it wasn't relevant. I only show the video once to users, and it doesn't appear when they go back to the site...it's just a w…

Showing something different to GoogleBot than your users is against terms of service, all good until you get caught.

In my own case, I'm showing the same thing as users who have been there > 1 times. I could remove the check and it wouldn't make much difference, as gbot uses cookies anyway.

For sites that always show the popup to users and never show it to gbot, I agree. However I've seen a lot of scammy sites that do this kind of time so I don't know how likely google is to find out about it.

Re: Google will punish sites that use annoying pop-up ads

#34
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google owns one of them, so there's that distinction...

Have you ever seen the little "x" in the corner of google display ads? If you click it, you're asked for the reason you're objecting to the ad. Among them "ad covers content". Meaning: you shouldn't always assume the worst, especially if there's evidence against it.

The YouTube ads cover the content by design. Google owns YouTube. Google isn't going to take action on their own site.

Re: Google will punish sites that use annoying pop-up ads

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google later confirmed that the update went live in Jan: http://searchengineland.com/google-confirms-rolling-mobile-i... I actually just added a full-screen video popup to a site a few days ago, and I made it so that it won't appear to googlebot. This wasn't for deceptive purposes, just because it wasn't relevant. I only show the video once to users, and it doesn't appear when they go back to the site...it's just a w…

Showing something different to GoogleBot than your users is against terms of service, all good until you get caught.

You're not getting "caught", and Google can fuck right off with any "terms of service" that I never agreed to about how I respond when they scrape my site without permission.

I know that there are practical concerns here, but Google has done a masterful job of shaping the conversation so that many people think anything not sanctioned by Almighty Google with regard to SEO (let alone actual "blackhat" tactics) is illegal or immoral.

Re: Google will punish sites that use annoying pop-up ads

#39
post #3

Google is very concerned about ads that visually block text content. But somehow forcing ads in front of videos on YouTube isn't the same exact thing? Both force an ad to be looked at before granting you access to the content you came for. I don't get the distinction.

It could have to do with the fact that video and text articles are different mediums.

Re: Google will punish sites that use annoying pop-up ads

#40
post #3

Google is very concerned about ads that visually block text content. But somehow forcing ads in front of videos on YouTube isn't the same exact thing? Both force an ad to be looked at before granting you access to the content you came for. I don't get the distinction.

Maybe Google Search is punishing search scores for YouTube videos because of ads, but since most online videos exist only on YouTube, those results generally still rank highly regardless of the penalty?
Post reply on HN