On Tuesday Google announced that it will begin to punish mobile websites that show “Intrusive” full page adds and pop-ups.  It is revising its search algorithms to lower the rank of these sites. The move will help users avoid bad advertising and could reduce traffic to offending pages.

“Pages that show intrusive interstitials provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible,” Google published in a blog post.  In the post Google expressed a view on intrusive advertising that you most likely share, stating ads reduce accessibility, provide a poorer experience, waste data and make it harder to quickly find content online.

This is most problematic on mobile devices with small screens, slower processors and limited amounts of data. Advertisements can create lag on phones that makes them almost unusable, consume data and potentially cost you money, while preventing you from accessing the content you wanted to read.

Google warned site managers to check their pages for three different kinds of ad. It will always mark pages that show a popup obscuring the main content, whether it appears immediately after accessing the page or later during scrolling. Standalone pop-ups that the user has to dismiss before accessing the main content will also be ranked lower. Finally, above-the-fold ad layouts which are visually similar to a standalone interstitial will be marked as less accessible.

Google recognizes that some pop-ups are a necessary component of webpages. Its technology will detect and not block login dialogues and easily dismissable banners, such as browser alerts when a website has a corresponding native app. Pop-ups displayed for legal reasons, such as cookie usage or age verification prompts, will also not be affected.

Below are some examples of pop-ups that will still be allowed without adversely affecting the websites ranking.

 

This change is set to take effect January 10, 2017, so if you have any full page advertisements or pop-ups on your company website you may want to consider removing that content.