If you’ve often had the frustrating experience of clicking on a link in Google’s search results only to immediately see a large interstitial which blocks much of what you want to see, you can take solace that webpages using this may rank less prominently in those search results starting next year.
In a blog post today, Google observes that intrusive interstitials can adversely affect the user experience, especially on the commonly smaller screens of mobile devices. Therefore, with effect from January 10, 2017, “pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly.”
Google clarifies, however, that not all interstitials will be negatively impacted in this way. As examples of interstitials that compromise the accessibility of website content and so would be so affected, Google cites popups that cover the page’s main content, and standalone interstitials that have to be dismissed before the main content is accessed.
The new signal would not, however, penalize webpages using interstitials apparently responding to a legal obligation, login dialogs on sites where content – like email or paywall-hidden content – cannot be publicly indexed, or easily-dismissible banners using “a reasonable amount of screen space”. This is all provided that such techniques are used responsibly, Google said.