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."

Comments

Mobile Web

[sexconker]

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?

Re:Mobile Web

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as you buy everyone a phone that's large enough for them.

Re:Mobile Web

[Anonymous Coward]

I know right. It's damn near impossible to ask the average web designer to create a website for both mobile and desktop. There are literally thousands of different user-agents out there and each has it's own specific screen dimensions. Find a better way, standardize some sizes. They won't do that because smartphone companies need to look different in order to separate themselves from the competition. If you think I'm gonna design for every single user-agent and dimension on the planet screw you. Your users can now enjoy zooming in on my website because I refuse to design mobile accessibility for every platform out there. It's too much bs to deal with. It's literally not worth the trouble in my opinion. Mobile has always been a headache.

I think you'll find the problem is that you're shit at your job.

Re:Mobile Web

[Solandri]

The irony is that the way Tim Berners-Lee designed the web, the web server was to send you a minimally-structured set of information to display, and it would be up to the client to format it in the best way for the local display. This meant things like font sizes, page flow, in-line photos, etc. should adhere to settings on the browser.

The designers and page layout artists were horrified at this, and did everything in their power to subvert this model and return control of how the site would appear back with themselves. That's why flash websites were so popular in the early 2000s - it gave them complete control of how the site would appear, giving the user none. Gradually they've figured out ways to take away control from the user using regular html, which is why you now have websites where you can't zoom, can't resize fonts, everything is locked to three columns (menu, text, ads) which you can't move, resize, or rearrange, etc.

The way Tim Berners-Lee envisioned the web, there would be no need for a desktop site or a mobile site. You just create one site, and it's up to the visitor's browser to format it in a way which makes it most usable on the display device. The need for different desktop and mobile sites only arises if you design your site so that it will only operate at a certain resolution or screen size.

Re:It's about time Google did something about popu

[KiloByte]

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?

Re:Market Power

[quenda]

Google appears to be applying the rule to themselves.
The worst "interstitials" to me are the YouTube ads ("skip in 5 seconds"),

So by this policy, you can avoid the youtube ads by finding the video in Google search!
I just tried a whole bunch of video searches, and it goes straight to the video with no advert. But click another clip within youtube ...

Sorry if this is not news :)

Re:How is this change useful

[RobotRunAmok]

What, both of you? Why don't you ask the other guy and then let us all know...

Someone else's ads ads

[penguinoid]

punish mobile sites that use interstitials.

Those ads, they're not Google's ads. They need to die.

A good start...

[rickb928]

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.

Dear effing Idiot Webmasters...

[knorthern knight]

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/