Google Confirms It Has Launched Its Mobile Interstitial Penalty

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Google has officially begun rolling out the intrusive mobile interstitial penalty yesterday after months of warnings the penalty would be launched on January 10, 2017.

The roll-out was confirmed by both John Mueller and Gary Illyes yesterday.

The penalty is specifically designed to target intrusive interstitials that pop-up immediately after landing on a page from a Google mobile search result. However, it does not affect pages with delayed interstitials triggered by a click or action on the website.

Google specifies this means ā€œpages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly.ā€

Google also detailed three specific types of interstitials it deems as problematic:

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  • showing a popup that covers the main content, either immediately after the user navigates to a page from the search results or while they are looking through the page.
  • displaying a standalone interstitial that the user has to dismiss before accessing the main content.
  • using a layout where the above-the-fold portion of the page appears similar to a standalone interstitial, but the original content has been inlined underneath the fold.

The company also detailed three types of interstitials that would not be affected by the penalty, so long as they are ā€œused responsiblyā€:

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  • Interstitials that appear to be in response to a legal obligation, such as for cookie usage or for age verification.
  • Login dialogs on sites where content is not publicly indexable. For example, this would include private content such as email or unindexable content that is behind a paywall.
  • Banners that use a reasonable amount of screen space and are easily dismissible. The app install banners provided by Safari and Chrome are examples of banners that use a reasonable amount of screen space.
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Why Video Marketing Should Be a Priority in 2017 [Infographic]

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Video finally came into its own as a content marketing format over the past year, with the launch of 360-degree videos, Facebook Live, and all sorts of new features for video marketing on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.

It was only a matter of time, as video has been a huge part of the online ecosystem since the launch of YouTube all those years ago. Currently, estimates suggest up to 78% of all people watch videos online every week and 55% percent make it a daily activity. Ā That means if you have been ignoring online video as a marketing channel for your business, youā€™re missing out on a huge and highly engaged audience.

With the start of the new year, many businesses are considering finally making video marketing a part of their larger advertising strategy. If you arenā€™t, you might want to reconsider. This infographic created by HighQ shows exactly why 2017 is poised to be the year video marketing blows up. You donā€™t want to be lagging behind when it does.

Video Marketing Infographic

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Bing Reveals The Top Marketing Search Terms For 2016

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Bing has unveiled the top marketing keywords searched for throughout last year, based on their US search data. The new reveal sheds light on what people are thinking of and what the biggest upcoming trends are, with personal assistants beating out the competition.

ā€Personal assistants and artificial intelligence were a clear priority for marketers over the past year. Advances in chat bots and virtual assistants, such as Alexa, Cortana and Amazon Echo ā€“ as well as updates to several smartphone chat bots, were likely drivers for these search terms.ā€

Of course, Microsoft owns both Cortana and Bing, so it is possible that played a role in the high rank of personal assistants on the list. Still, the popularity of other services such as Siri and Alexa shows that virtual assistants are quickly becoming a major part of the tech and marketing landscape.

In addition to personal assistants, Bing says augmented reality and virtual reality are also poised to play a big role in marketing.

ā€Virtual and augmented reality came second to intelligence, with the popularity of searches representing the growth of this technology throughout 2016 ā€“ and itā€™s likely continual development into next year.ā€

Check out the rest of the top marketing search terms for 2016 below:

  1. Personal Assistants/ Intelligent Agents
  2. Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality
  3. Search Marketing
  4. Artificial Intelligence
  5. Email Marketing
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Sites Without HTTPS May Be Marked as Non-Secure in Chrome Soon

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Google HTTPS Warning

Google is making some changes to protect usersā€™ sensitive information online, and it could lead to your site being marked as non-secure by Googleā€™s web browser at the end of this month.

Google released a warning that as of the end of January 2017, Chrome will mark sites without HTTPS as non-secure if they collect private information like passwords or credit cards.

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ā€œEnabling HTTPS on your whole site is important, but if your site collects passwords, payment info, or any other personal information, itā€™s critical to use HTTPS.ā€

The company has encouraged implementing HTTPS in the past by making it a (very minor) search ranking signal. Now, from the sound of the alert, the company says an entire site will need to be HTTPS if any pages collect payment or sensitive information.

Switching over to HTTPS is an easy process, but you should begin preparing to make the switch now if your site fits the criteria. Otherwise, you are likely to be flagged as non-secure in February and lose a large amount of your web traffic.

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