Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrusive Pop-Up Ads

Re:Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrus... by baddox on Thursday January 19, 2017 @07:02PM (#13440626)

Where do they expect these visitors to come from, if not from Google searches? It doesn't add up to me. If people can only get to your site from Google by scrolling past Google's own widgets, why make your site worse and thus discouraging them from scrolling down next time?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrus... by toomanybeersies on Thursday January 19, 2017 @08:43PM (#13441130)

Brand recognition and loyalty.

People don't use bookmarks, especially on mobile phones. Not many people are going to bookmark hostelworld.com and when looking for a hostel, they're not going to click the bookmark and search on hostelworld. They're going to Google search for "hostels in XYZ", and hostelworld will be there, underneath Google's own recommendations.

With the app though, the icon is conveniently sitting there on the home screen. You're probably getting less new users by giving on on web, but the users that you do get using your app are going to be much more loyal.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrus... by patmcguire on Thursday January 19, 2017 @07:23PM (#13440731)

Because the user didn't scroll, the site got lucky and Google didn't have a result for that particular query. It was a miracle, it won't happen again, there is no second chance, hit them with everything.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Google Has Started Penalizing Mobile Websites with Intrus... by dandelany on Thursday January 19, 2017 @07:22PM (#13440724)

Presumably they are hoping to build brand loyalty - they want you to open your Hotels.com (or whatever) app directly next time you need to book, instead of doing a Google search

[ Parent | on HN ]