Google, a top name in SEO services has always been a mentor for ensuring effective presence of a website on desktops, laptops as well as on mobile devices. In this pursuit, the search engine giant recently announced that it will severely penalize the mobile sites that contain “interstitial ads” which affect the site visibility on various mobile devices.

The trend setter in search engine informed that it will start the crackdown on those offensive mobile sites from 10th January, 2017. The announcement is certainly a wake up call for numerous mobile sites that are still using “interstitial ads” that are affecting the user experience of various mobile users. No doubt, you would not want a negative impact on your mobile SEO rankings with this latest update. However, you are still not having much idea about these “interstitial ads” actually are and how they are going to degrade the online presence of a mobile site on various search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and such others.

What are interstitial ads?

Interstitial ads are referred as full or partial screen ads that cover the large part of the background of your main site on the browsing device. These ads are displayed at the natural transition points or in between the flow of an application, process or activity within a site. They are shown prominently on a site to fulfill a particular purpose of the site owner.

Interstitial ads that are a roadblock in an engaging mobile user experience  

As per this latest announcement, the non adherence of the Google guidelines regarding interstitial ads will invite a harsh penalty from the search engine behemoth in terms of mobile search engine rankings and online visibility. Take a quick look at some of these interstitial ads that deserve your immediate attention.

• Popup ads that cover the main content once the user has landed on the page through search results or when the user is browsing in between the pages of a website.
• Showcasing a standalone interstitial ad that requires user involvement for ad rejection for accessing the main content of a site.
• Situations where mobile site owners are using the above- the- fold page layout that is similar to the standalone interstitial ad where the original content is inlined underneath the fold.

Types of interstitial ads that are outside the ambit of this upcoming interstitial penalty

With the roll out of this new interstitial Google penalty by the next year, mobile users would not be robbed from a clean, clear and unnecessary interstitial ad free user experience on mobile devices. However, Google has gone a bit soft on these interstitial ads and has suggested certain types of interstitial ads that can be used with the mobile site content. Let us explore these allowed mobile interstitial ads.

• Interstitial ads that emerge in response to a legal purpose on a mobile site like cookie usage or for the purpose of age verification.
• Use of login dialogs on site where content is not publicly indexed. For example, these ads comprise of private content like email or unindexed content which is behind a paywall. Paywall means an arrangement wherein the access to a particular content is provided to restricted paid users who have subscribed on a site.
• Banner ads that make use of reasonable amount of screen space and can be easily rejected. Say for example, the app install banners that are provided by Safari and Chrome falls into this category that makes use of reasonable amount of screen space.

How can this update improve the mobile site user experience?    

The main intent behind the roll out of this interstitial ad penalty by Google is to offer a better user site experience on various mobile devices. With this latest update, site content will be accessible on mobile devices in a much better way. Here are some of the areas where this latest mobile update can offer brilliant mobile SEO results.

– It will help in simplifying the searching of user queries on mobile devices.
– The update will offer a quick access to website content on multiple mobile devices.
– The  site experience of mobile users will be improved to a great extent.
– This interstitial penalty update will improve mobile search rankings of your site.
– It will help in increasing the usability of mobile sites for better conversions and sales.

Don’t wait for your mobile sites to be affected by this new interstitial ad penalty update by Google but take the right steps now. This is definitely a milestone update that can change the complete scenario in the mobile SEO world. In case, you want to optimize the performance of your mobile site, feel free to contact our mobile SEO company, Velocity on the number +91-120-4243310 or send us an email at [email protected].