Have you ever visited a website using your mobile phone only to be greeted with a popup that is hard to be removed and block the content of the website? There are increasing number of website that is using popup you grab visitors attention but in a mobile view where is limited screen size, this can be intrusive and give a bad experience to people who wanted to find some information in your website.

Google then come to the rescue. By January 2017, any website that still display the annoying and intrusive popup in their mobile version website will be penalised and down rank by Google. The priority of Google is to give the most user-friendly search results. It’s natural that they are starting to hunt down websites that use intrusive popups and advertising.

What is the characteristic of intrusive AKA bad popups?


The first image shows an example of an intrusive popup. Why is it intrusive?

Because it covers the main content, whether it appears when a user enters the page or scrolls down. Also because it does not have a Call-to-Action button.

The second and third examples are of standalone interstitials that need to be dismissed by the user in order to view the main page content. Again, no Call-to-Action.

Another bad example are layouts where the above-the-fold part takes up the entire screen and leaves the page content below the fold. Often, such layouts are used to display a promotion or invite new users to subscribe for a newsletter. Usually, they come with a close button or a scroll down button that lifts the layout, however this is still intrusive and prevents users from instantly accessing the main page content.

Using such methods will probably get you punished by Google. Now, let’s show the right way to use popups.


Popups used for legal purposes, such as cookie consent or age verification will not be considered as harmful to the user experience. You can see that in the first and second image.

The third example shows a banner that does not cover the main page content and uses a reasonable amount of screen space on the mobile device. Most of all – it’s easy to close.


Google has always been focusing on the user experience and so should you. It is about time to remove those annoying popups on the mobile screen by using a media query or designing a user friendly popup form. We at Swift Media Solution is here to provide further assistance and service on this matter.