From now on, Google’s Mobile Friendly Test will be used to rank websites.
Love it or hate it, Google will lower the ranks of websites with massive app install ads starting from November 1. The search giant explains their decision by saying that the ads are both unnecessary and annoying; they prevent users from fully accessing the web page and they rarely convince Internet users to click on them.
The change has been designed primarily for mobile versions of websites because Google thinks many more users will rely on this technology in the future. They have provided an example of the dos and don’ts of install app ads. According to the developing company, these ads should not cover the entire screen of the mobile device. If they do so the website will automatically be disqualified.
This criterion is not the only one that Google is using for the selection of its websites. Developers have designed a special tool, the Mobile Friendly Test which analyzes the entire content of the website before establishing whether it should be upgraded or downgraded.
Google justifies their new decision by putting forward the results of a past survey indicating that many Internet users feel frustrated by intrusive interstitials. The search giant claims there are better ways to make app install suggestions, based on the information collected from the survey.
Some tech analysts on the other hand, think Google is using this technique to take full control of the entire app field. Yelp’s founder, for instance, has strong reasons to believe that Google search may lose its popularity if Internet users downloaded apps from competing companies. Hence, Google’s interest in reducing huge install app ads.
Unfortunately, many app developers complain they have little weapons to fight against Google’s monopoly. The company can do pretty much all it wants since there are few people that will pluck their sleeve.
Among the many changes that Google is making is also the introduction of their most recent logo. The new design preserves all the visual elements and colors of the past symbol, it is the font that has been rendered a little bit more user friendly. This is the biggest change that the company has made in point of logo design since May 1999 when the exclamation point at the end of the logo was dropped.
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