Google Sending Warnings On Intrusive Interstitials
04/19/2022Google is sending out notices through Google Search Console for sites that have intrusive interstitials, searchengineland reports. It seems like those interstitials are ruining the page experience of the site – which, to be honest, doesn’t really come as a surprise.
What are Intrusive Interstitials?
You know how you come to a website and all these popups appear, it all looks impossible to turn off, and you can’t see anything else on the page because of them? There’s your answer.
According to Google, intrusive interstitials and dialogs are elements of your page that block users’ view of the content. Usually, they are used for promotional purposes. Even though there are particular reasons when the use of these elements is justified, using them in this sense, results in users leaving your page, which means your page experience is not great. Plus, it makes it hard for search engines to understand your content – which leads to bad ranking.
How To Create Nonintrusive Dialogs?
The goal here is to create interstitials that won’t affect the users’ experience. If you want to grab the attention of your users, use banners that take up only a fraction of the screen instead of full-page interstitials.
Use common libraries – there are many CMS plugins available that create standard dialogs and interstitials for the most common use cases, including newsletter sign-up prompts. As plugin developers can deploy improvements at scale, these can be helpful for Google, other search engines, and the internet in general.
If you have to use a mandatory interstitial (age confirmation, for example), make sure the interstitial is overlaid on the content. That way at least some of the content can then be indexed by Google and potentially be indexed in search results.
Even though this isn’t a case of manual action, intrusive interstitials impact your page experience and affect your ranking. So, if you get this notice – act on it!
read more March 2022 Product Reviews Update Now Rolled Out
04/13/2022Nineteen days after Google launched the third version of the product reviews update, it is now finished rolling out.
According to data providers, the update was much smaller than the one in December, but it still did manage to cause some fluctuations in rankings and impact organic traffic.
If you have products review on your website, it would be a good idea to check if your organic traffic improved, declined, or remained unchanged.
In the long run, you should definitely put more effort into your product and make it special, let it stand out on the web.
What To Do If You’re Affected
Those who were affected by this update probably felt it very strongly, but the chatter within the community was not as widespread as it was for the December update.
Google has provided advice on what you should consider if you are negatively impacted by this product reviews update.
Along with focusing on providing users with insightful and useful, expert-written content, you should also think about two things: multimedia and multiple sellers.
If you ask Google, you should provide evidence in your product review. Add visuals, audio, and links of you using the product – show your expertise.
Also, add include links from multiple sellers. That will give readers more choice and help with your trustworthiness.
Include helpful details and specifics, show how the product is actually used and include information beyond the manufacturer’s. Explain why is that product better than the competition.
In its third update to the products reviews, Google also added three new tips:
- Product reviews apply to all forms of review content, but because ranked lists tend to be shorter, you may want to demonstrate expertise and emphasize authenticity more concisely. Including original images from tests you’ve done with the product and citing pertinent results are good ways to demonstrate this.
- If you recommend a particular product as the best overall or the best for a particular purpose, be sure to explain to the reader why you feel that is the case.
- The combination of a ranked list of related products and in-depth reviews of each product can be very effective. If you were to write both, make sure the ranked list has enough useful content to stand on its own.
This update’s goal is to promote review content that is much more than basic, dry, templated information you find on the web.
According to Google, these types of product reviews will be promoted in search results. So, why not benefit from the situation and do your best to get a fresh organic search result rank?
For now, Google is not punishing those who have a simplified summary of products. But, if there is better-written content out there, it will beat you and get the rank – so, you’re not punished, but they are rewarded.
So, go, check, rewrite and get that ranking!
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