Your Website is Mobile Friendly Now, Will It Be on November 1?

Will your mobile app cause you to lose your Mobile Friendly Status? Google can be a picky! But at least these days they are giving some warnings before they punish you.

So, you finally have your site responsively designed. Mobilegeddon has been averted. So you just ponied up the the money to get an app for your business, time to put get a full page pop up ad that will get visitors on your mobile site to download your app masterpiece, right? Not so fast my friend.

Having a mobile app for your business is a great way to connect with your customers. Google has even recently made it easier to find and discover apps and mobile friendly webpages.  But this weeks Google announcement is giving these companies 2 months to take down the full page app ad, or risk losing their Mobile Friendly Status.

Why the call for action? User experience. They have found that most users find it frustrating to expect to see content after clicking on a search link, and instead finding a full page ad aimed at getting the user to install their app.  Leaving the user looking for a small x to close the ad.  

Google is not against all attempts to get your app out into the wild though. They just prefer that you use a small banner ad that is less intrusive than a app install interstitial. App install banners are supported in both Safari (Smart banners) and in Chrome (as Native App Install Banners).

Hopefully this warning will prove to be effective.  Although the major players out there like Linkedin and Yahoo may not feel the pinch because of the sheer volume of traffic, user loyalty and popularity; this will affect smaller sites that rely on search for discovery. One way or the other you should see fewer of these pop-up frustrations come November 1, when the changes go into effect.

Let us know. Do you use these type of ads to increase app downloads?