“Pop-ups and User Experience” – new cartoon and post on the tricky design balance of “annoying” and “effective” https://t.co/MJucUSiyH0#marketing #cartoon #marketoon pic.twitter.com/cZAnbt4Waw
— Tom Fishburne (@tomfishburne) January 24, 2021
Mobile sites can display pop-ups on a temporary basis without being penalized in search results, according to Google’s John Mueller.
First brought to my attention by Search Engine Journal, it is good to see a clear answer on a type of marketing that, although can be annoying, is proven to be effective under the right circumstances.
However, if you hate coming across pop-ups when you visit websites then check out Google Chrome’s pop-up blocker for a way to turn them off completely . It’s good to point out though the average perception of pop-ups seem to be negative when a major Internet browser defaults to blocking pop-ups.
According to Mueller, pop-ups don’t negatively affect a website’s rankings. If there is useful content on the page then the page will still get a good ranking. It’s more of a “subtle ranking factor” so, in this case, even if the pop up may slow down the user experience for a brief moment Google won’t take any disciplinary action against the page simply for having the pop up.
I personally don’t use pop-ups but I have used them before for affiliate marketing campaigns and they are effective.
English Google SEO office-hours from January 22, 2021:
“There are two aspects that could come into play. On one hand we have, on mobile, the policy of the intrusive interstitials, so that might be something to watch out for that you don’t keep it too long or show it to everyone all the time.
With that policy it’s more of a subtle ranking factor that we use to adjust the ranking slightly if we see that there’s no useful content on the page when we load it. That’s something that could come into play, but it’s more something that would be a temporary thing.”