Google today announced two major changes related to its mobile search results. The one you’ll probably notice first is that Google is removing the “mobile-friendly” label that highlighted pages that were easy to read on mobile from its mobile search results pages.
In the long run, though, the second change may be more wide-reaching: starting on January 10, 2017, the company will start punishing mobile pages that show intrusive interstitials when a user first opens a page and they will rank lower in its search results.
Why is Google removing the mobile-friendly label? According to Google’s own data, 85 percent of all pages it shows on its mobile search results pages are now mobile-friendly. So to declutter the results pages, it’s removing the label, even as it continues to use it as a ranking signal.
For the most part, Google is targeting overlays that gray out the content beneath them to prevent you from reading a website, either for a few seconds or until you find and very carefully tap a little X to dismiss them. These count regardless of whether they load immediately after a page is opened or whether they appear after scrolling a certain distance. On top of that, it sounds like Google will also count ads that create the effect of a pop-up without actually being a pop-up, by taking up most of the page after a site is loaded (you may have seen one of these if you’re reading this article on mobile).
Not all pop-ups and overlays will be counted in Google’s new rankings. Pop-ups needed to meet a legal requirement (like verifying someone’s age)are still okay, as are smaller banners at the top of a screen that use, in Google’s not-at-all-defined formula, a "reasonable amount of screen space."
Publishers are likely to be unhappy about the change, as it’s liable to take away either visitors or ad revenue. And it’s fair to question whether Google should be the one to dictate when ads are and are not acceptable. But that all said, its intention here seems to be pretty reasonable. These ads make websites into slightly worse search results, and Google is going to start treating them that way.