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Google Search Removes 'Mobile-Friendly' Label, Will Tackle Interstitials Next (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Google today announced two updates to mobile search results: an aesthetic one rolling out now and an algorithmic one coming next year. The former consists of removing the "mobile-friendly" label in search results and the latter will punish mobile sites that use interstitials. The goal is to "make finding content easier for users," though as always, the company didn't share exactly how much of an impact users and webmasters can expect. The report adds: "If your site is in the 15 percent group, here's a quick recap. A webpage is considered 'mobile friendly' if it meets the following criteria, as detected in real time by Googlebot: Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash; Uses text that is readable without zooming; Sizes content to the screen so users don't have to scroll horizontally or zoom; Places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped. The company now wants to tackle 'intrusive interstitials' as they 'provide a poorer experience to users than other pages where content is immediately accessible.' After January 10, 2017, pages where content is not easily accessible when coming from mobile search results 'may not rank as highly.' Interstitials that Google doesn't like include showing a popup that covers the main content (immediately or delayed), displaying a standalone interstitial that the user has to dismiss before accessing the main content, and using a layout where the above-the-fold portion is similar to a standalone interstitial but the original content is inlined underneath. Interstitials that Google deems OK include legal obligations (cookie usage or for age verification), login dialogs on sites where content is not publicly indexable, and banners that use a reasonable amount of screen space and are easily dismissible."
My phone has a large enough screen and a high enough resolution that I just prefer to browse the full site. Can we stop the "mobile web" shit?
I've seen plenty of desktop-focused sites that return one thing to the googlebot and another to normal browsers. E.g, they present a page to google that contains MySearchTerm, yet this does not appear on the page returned to browsers. Or sometimes the content they claim to have is hidden behind a login page, yet the googlebot still points to the page for that term.
What's to stop them from doing the same with interstitials? Pretend to anything coming from google's IP ranges that there are none, yet have them for everyone else.
Lemme guess ... Google's own ad sales don't provide for interstitial ads.
It's about time Google did something about those full screen popups which pop up every time you go to some webpage, usually asking for your email address. It's annoying to start reading something and being interrupted by a popup which covers the entire page.
As an aside, I find Google's ads have become annoying enough I recently removed them from my pages, despite the minor financial hit. When a webmaster asked for text-only ads, Google used to give you only text; now they give you pictures and sometimes even animations in their "text-only" ads.
I used to not need to use adblock to comfortably surf the internet; I could keep supporting websites by looking at and sometimes clicking their ads. Annoying ads were kept at bay with a click-to-show-flash extension and by disabling looping animated gifs. I really wish there was an adblocker extension out there with a click-to-blacklist mode; I don't think all ad-supported websites should suffer just because a few bad players have obnoxious javascript ads. And, yes, I do support quality content on the web with a subscription to the New York Times.
the info the browser provides would handle that, so when someone is using a website and their browser says this is an android device with a screen resolution of #x# that phones & tablets use the website should automatically serve up mobile optimized web pages, and when the browser said this is a Linux or windows device with an even bigger screen resolution of #x# that most laptops and desktop PCs have then the server should serve up laptop/desktop optimized web pages,
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
For what it is worth, I use this javascript saved as a favorite. On ios, you need to save ANYTHING as a favorite, then edit the title to something useful (like "Enable Zoom") and then change the link to this javascript mess:
javascript:document.querySelector('meta%5Bname=viewport%5D').setAttribute('content','width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=10.0,user-scalable=1');
"Congratulations! You have won a free iPad!" survey full page bullshit.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
It's about time Google did something about those full screen popups which pop up every time you go to some webpage
You mean, like that shit from consent.google.com with the parent page whitened out with blocked scroll even if the consent thingy is prevented by a request policy?
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Isn't it Google that powers the "answer this survey question to gain access to this news article" thing? I swear I remember seeing their logo on it.
On the web, interstitials are web pages displayed before or after an expected content page, often to display advertisements or confirm the user's age (prior to showing age-restricted material). Most interstitial advertisements are delivered by an ad server. - wikipedia
Everyone but advertisers would prefer if sites with lame adverts before the content were punished. I hope to see this feature added to DuckDuckGo.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
What, both of you? Why don't you ask the other guy and then let us all know...
punish mobile sites that use interstitials.
Those ads, they're not Google's ads. They need to die.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Why do mobile websites disable zoom, when zoom is most useful on mobile devices?
Probably because it's too easy to accidentally zoom when you're scrolling around and clicking on buttons and links. Perhaps such sites should have a permanent enable/disable zoom button or gesture.
Next up:
- Demoting sites that prompt you to install 'their mobile app'. This is just their desperate plea to get even more data from you. And given what Google and that desktop site gathers already, that's a pretty impressive feat.
- Demote sites that pop a notification request. I don't even know you, website, and you want into my circle of trust? Huh?
- And can we get an amen for punishing sites that pop up Android Virus/Malware Detected, Battery and Memory Optimizer, and any other free and fraudulent apps?
And with that, half the web dies. So sad.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Puh-h-h-lease...
Stop playing games trying to identify the user agent and sending to different pages,. Mozilla has gone off the deep end, and there are multiple forks of Firefox (I use Pale Moon). Many idiot webmasters try to match user-agent to one of the "big 3 or 4". If the match fails, they assume it's some weird mobile browser, and force even desktop browsers to the mobile site. If I specify "bad.example.com/", I want the desktop version, not the mobile version.
If you absolutely insist on doubling your workload, go ahead and create a separate "m.bad.example.com/", but please don't try to force users to it, because it probably sucks. A couple of "obligatory" cartoons for you...
http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/...
https://xkcd.com/869/
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Probably because it's too easy to accidentally zoom when you're scrolling around and clicking on buttons and links.
You were great in Back To The Future, not so much in Teen Wolf.
"His name was James Damore."
I'm pretty sure that's what they're doing, weighing rank on mobile devices.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
The report adds: "If your site is in the 15 percent group
What 15% group? If you're going to chop out paragraphs from an article, at least make sure they make sense by themselves.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I am thinking the same thing.
I just see this as Google flexing their muscles and weighting their search results to favor their own platform.
I browse the web in a standard PC web browser. I cannot stand browsing the web on anything else. To me, "mobile friendly" means "crippled"
Hopefully, mobile optimized searches are context aware and will only highly weight "mobile friendly" sites when searching from a mobile device.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.