Mobile search rankings could be damaged by content blocking
Great news – blocking content will probably have a negative impact on the page’s search ranking.
We all hate content blockers, like those pesky popups that require a sign up before accessing the rest of the page’s content. And it appears that Google is on the readers’ side.
In an update from Google they stated:
Starting today, pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as high…
Why would Google do this?
Simple. They want their search results to be relevant and useful. So blocking content will, in many cases, cause the visitor to click the back button (bounce) and go to the next result, essentially telling Google the first result was a waste of their time – something Google works extremely hard to rectify.
Why am I telling you this?
- I came across a site the other day that has a great article (it was shared with me through social), but I couldn’t read it without signing up to the newsletter. This frustrated me, as I felt that the article should either be available or not – not let me load the page, but not be able to read the content!
- If you are using a modal (popup) to force visitors to accept your cookies, you could be inadvertently compromising your SEO efforts.
- I’m just a sharing kinda guy.