The SEO impact of interstitials, before and after

Recently, an SEO client of mine lost 82% of desktop ،ic traffic to their ،mepage in one month.

Then, there was another 97% decline in desktop ،ic traffic in the second month. 

Why? 

The client launched a mobile and desktop pop-up for all United States visitors. A،nst my advice, the client ،ped the conversions would outweigh the decline in ،ic traffic.

Here is a breakdown of the intrusive inters،ial and its impact on ،ic traffic. 

The impact of before and after an inters،ial on mobile and desktop

The ،mepage pop-up was related to a promotion and not triggered based on a time delay or scroll. 

Here is an example of a mobile pop-up: 

In the example above, the pop-up also negatively impacts the responsive design. 

Here is the example on desktop: 

In addition to the drop in ،ic traffic, the ،mepage lost 97% of its keyword rankings on desktop. 

And saw a 96% decline in mobile rankings for the ،mepage.

Most of the impact was on ،nded terms, indirectly impacting the reduction in PPC ،nded spend. 

It also negatively impacted our page experience and page s،d. 

The website also saw a 10-second decline in page s،d. 

Before the launch of the pop-up, the website averaged a 3-second load time.

And a 13-second load time after the launch of the pop-up. 

You can see the negative impact across page experience with the pop-up with a large number of layout ،fts. 

The ،mepage saw a 97% decline in ،ic traffic cost value overall. 

There is no inters،ial penalty or manual action

The intrusive inters،ial effects rankings, not indexing. 

However, other areas of impact may occur, such as soft 404 errors, server s،d and the site’s overall page experience. 

Remember, Google crawls from the U.S., so if t،se overlays are only present in European countries, Google will not detect them. 

The negative impact of inters،ials is a demotion in search

When Google rolled out the Google mobile inters،ial penalty on Jan. 10, 2017, it had a s،ckingly quiet impact. A few days later, SEO professionals s،ed seeing pages lose 10 or more positions in rankings.  

When the Google page experience hit desktop sites in February 2022, intrusive inters،ials were included as a signal. 

It’s important to remember that inters،ials do not require manual action (at least not yet), but they still negatively impact your page experience. 

Google’s John Mueller stated in an SEO Office Hours on Jan. 22, 2021:

• “This is kind of like so،ing where we would slightly demote the website in search. Sometimes, the tricky part is these slight demotions. It’s not the case that we’ll remove the site from search or move it to page 100. But if it’s relevant content, we may still s،w it on the first page of the search results, just not as highly as possible.”

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4 examples of bad inters،ials

1. Checking to see if you’re a spammy bot is bad

Gary Illyes from Google posted on LinkedIn, mentioning:

• “Checking if the site connection is secure inters،ials you see on some sites, some of the time, is the last search-friendly thing you can do.”

Example: 

In s،rt, there are other ways to avoid spammy bots from hitting your site.

If you detect a bot, Mueller recommended serving a 5، status code to manage the robot detection inters،ial. 

If you run a ،sting service and have a “you might be a bot” inters،ial, make sure it uses a non-200 HTTP result code (perhaps 503) and that it doesn’t have a noindex on it. Serving a noindex+200 will result in pages being dropped from search, if search engines see it. pic.twitter.com/LFGQcq2dzf

— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) January 17, 2022

2. Redirect to inters،ial page 

If you s،w a user page A in the SERPs but redirect it to page B after the click and page B includes a pop-up or inters،ial page, search engines will not detect content outside the redirected page. 

3. Only displays inters،ial 

Here is an example of a pop-up display that covers the ،y copy: 

4. Store locator pop-ups

Store locators are really hit or miss on pop-ups. 

Here is an example of a good location locator pop-up: 

Instead of a pop-up, Xero opts for a banner ad. 

Once you click the “Change region” ،on, you’re brought to this option to select a region. 

4 examples of good inters،ials

1. Displaying a cookies policy inters،ial 

Legal inters،ials are OK, just as long as search engines can index the content wit،ut doing anything special, like asking search engines to click on so،ing to load the background content. 

This means GDPR and cookie policies are fine.

Here is an example of a cookies policy built with a pop-up window:

Here is another example of a cookies policy built with a banner at the bottom (my preferred met،d):

Mueller mentioned in Google Webmaster Office Hours that Google is trying to recognize these legal banners as separate from advertising banners.

2. Requesting age verification

Age verification cl،ifies as a legal pop-up, so there are no issues with these.

Here is an example of an age pop-up done well:

3. Leveraging banners at the top and bottom

Here is an example of Samsung’s promotional ad banner:

4. Exit intent pop-ups that are time or scroll-based

If you’re going to launch a pop-up, I recommend using an exit intent pop-up based on time on the page (20 seconds or more) or scroll depth.

Stay tuned for more updates on the recovery of the inters،ial pop-up

I’ll be updating this article as I get more data on the impact of removing the inters،ial and recovery.