Welcome to the world of “app-install interstitials”. They are, IMHO, a pain in the butt. On the scale of web annoyances, they rate just below pop-up ads and those display ads placed by companies that covertly monitor your browsing. But now it transpires that Google doesn’t like these interstitials either and has announced that henceforth it will be downgrading in its search results any mobile-oriented web pages that produce interstitials. “Our analysis shows,” the company says, “that it is not a good search experience and can be frustrating for users because they are expecting to see the content of the web page.” Right on. “Starting today, we’ll be updating the mobile-friendly test to indicate that sites should avoid showing app-install interstitials that hide a significant amount of content on the transition from the search result page.”
Google’s good deed can’t hide its US loyalties. No doubt this is a purely selfish act by Google but it thrills me.