Should Marketers Avoid Pop-Ups?
The good news is that as Web users you may not be pestered by them as frequently anymore
The bad news is that Google may start penalizing those websites that are using them
We know, we know, it’s yet another thing Google seems to be taking away but it’s important to understand why these pop-ups are coming under fire and it all stems from the above-the-fold layout algorithm penalty.
The problem is this: you are displaying the banner to an individual BEFORE they land on the page which is actually being indexed by Google before the website thus giving the site a false impression.
John Mueller had this to say about what’s happening:
“When we look at the page layout, we look at what we crawl with Googlebot and since Googlebot doesn’t use any cookies, we will probably see that ad every time we visit. So that’s something we would take into account there.”
John’s suggestion to those that want to continue to use these large pop-ups would be to consider showing them the second time a person visits the website since Googlebot doesn’t use cookies.
