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Google to Penalise Sites Using Annoying Pop-Ups

Keeping up with Google’s changes can be an exhausting process, so to make it easier, we’ve done the work for you! Here are two of the latest Google updates. 

1. Updates to the Keyword Planner Tool.

Google’s Keyword Planner Tool is a favourite amongst Business owners looking to increase their first-page rankings, but for those who are low-spenders, the latest Google update may come as a shock.

In an attempt to prevent bots and other services from abusing the functions of Keyword Planner, Google has now limited what data can be seen by low-spending advertisers. According to a Google AdWords Community Manager, it has been announced that:

“Advertisers with lower monthly spend may see a limited data view in the Keyword Planner. For example, you may see values such as 0, 1-100, 100-1K, 1K-10K, 10K-100K, 100K-1M, 1M+ in the average monthly searches column. In addition, other advertisers may trigger the limited data view by reaching a limit on the number of searches for search volume data.”

Many are questioning why Google AdWords would limit the data of its lower-spending users such as this, and how strongly it may impact on those advertisers. According to our SponsoredLinX SEO Operations Manager Adam Conroy, the changes are not as severe as some may imagine. 

“At the end of the day, those with a lot of PPC experience are still going to be able to interpret the data within Google Keyword Planner’s new context, however, the effects will be much more severe for those with less experience. That said, so long as you’ve got an expert looking after your account, then the effects of these changes should be largely mitigated.” 

1. Google to Penalize Disruptive mobile Interstitial Ads 

Disruptive pop-up ads – they’re the bane of our internet browsing existence. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that I can’t stand pop-up ads that take over my whole screen or make themselves known right as I begin to browse a page. So when I heard that Google was planning to apply ranking penalties to web pages using these mobile interstitials, I was pretty impressed.  

According to Google’s Webmaster Central Blog, as of January 2017: “pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly.”

Caption: Examples of intrusive interstitial ads. Source: Google Blog

Examples of intrusive interstitial ads. 

However, this is understandably not great news for advertisers. My advice? Start looking into adopting less-disruptive advertising methods – such as exit pop-ups. If you want to know more about these advertising methods, check out my previous blog on ‘3 Ways To Create Non Intrusive Ads People Want To Read.’

Looking for some advice on how to maximise your advertising reach? SponsoredLinX can help your business to get to where it needs to go! Contact us today on 1300 859 600.