HAVING A POPUP WINDOW ON HOMEPAGE AFFECTS SEO?
-
Good evening,
I currently have a blog that uses a popup window after 15 seconds that is used to add visitor to my newsletter.
My question is : Does it have a negative effect in SEO?
Thanks in advance
Maria Jesus
-
I'd say it has a negative effect on SEO as SEO is also to do with user experience. moneysavingexpert.com used to have a pop-up that appeared just after the site loaded and blacked out the whole of the rest of the screen - I found it hugely annoying; just as I'd started to read the content it disappeared and I had to close something to continue reading. If I didn't already know the site was genuine I would have thought it was dodgy and pressed back or close straight away.
I'm not 100% sure but I think it was the owner of daniweb.com who said she introduced something similar to encourage people to sign up to her forum. Her bounce rate increased dramatically so she took it off as soon as she realised, and the bounce rate recovered. Bounce rate is something that can be measured by the search engines, along with other metrics related to user experience that will be taken into account when calculating the ranking of a page.
Alan's idea, to do something more subtle, is a good one. If it was unique and done really well, you might even get extra links because of it, rather than potentially less links as Matt Cutts suggested in the video Ryan linked to.
-
I find that as long as it does not repeat,or block content, move main content, it would be ok.
even a quck glow.
I dont believe that you can change peoples minds much, you can only suggest. If they are not interested, the the hard sell will only anger.
Internet customers are like rabbits approching food, anything suss or the slightest wrong move, and they are out of there.
After all your compedtors are only a few clicks away
What I rerally hate are these walk on videos
http://www.mediastreams.ca/servicepackages/custom_walkon_video.htma lot fast moeny SEO's have them
-
There's a creative idea Alan! You can have a bird move on the page after a few seconds and "land" on the content you wish the reader to see. The implementation would be key. Done correctly, it would be just a tiny bit of movement to catch a reader's attention. On the other hand, it could be done in an annoying manner as well.
-
As others have stated, its a bit in your face to the user.
May i suggest rather then a pop-up, just insert it somewhere un-obtrusive, after a few seconds, a simple bit of movement is all that is needed, and it would not stop the user from reading your content
-
Thanks Ryan. I like your more detailed answer on user experience, spot on!
-
I agree with Simon. Prior to Panda pop ups had no effect on SEO. You can hear Matt Cutts share this directly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_0WI75X4U4
I would add that many users perceive pop-ups to be unfriendly, and in our post-Panda world it may be a ranking factor. I would suggest taking a close look at how users perceive the popup. Find a way to sit people down in front of a pc and get them to visit your site. Watch their reactions to the popups. If 2-3 of the react negatively then take that as a strong indicator and consider it surely is a negative user experience and could be a negative panda factor.
-
Hi Maria, this usually has absolutely no effect at all on SEO, though can't be completely sure without seeing it and your website. The main consideration with such pop ups is User Experience rather than SEO. Hope that helps, Simon
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
SEO for a Domain which contains Multiple individual sites
My website structure www.example.com (wordpress installation number 1)
On-Page Optimization | | kevinbp
www.example.com/forum/ (vbulletin installtion)
www.example.com/shop/ (wordpress installation number 2) Each of these individual pages contains a fresh wordpress/vbulletin installation with their individual admin control panel. Am i doing this website entirely wrong? Is my website considered as a single website or does Google classify it as 3 different websites? My Ranking page is, www.example.com, and by blog post is www.example.com/forum/blog. When i do a link within my blog entry to my main ranking page, does it count as external or internal link?0 -
Panda 4.0 indirectly affecting my rankings (maybe)
Hi, So my site supplies Q&A type of content - user queries a question and generally they get the answer from my site (landing page). I always make sure my content is (1) unique (2) answers the question (3) extensive in answering the question - reason being I rely on social shares quite a bit and that system works very well, sharing happens with my content. But one of my main pages has dropped from position 5 to position 10 in the last few days - I assume its panda 4.0 because my rankings have been rock for around 2 years. But I don't think its dropped my site, I think it has boosted others above me. The thing I don't understand is the sites its boosted above me have very little content and in some cases lots of Adsense surrounding it. I'm not moaning just a bit confused: I have 750 words of good content, another sites comes out of nowhere with 50 words -> how can Google decide the 50 word site is better using the panda algo? This is me assuming the panda algo is purely content/copy based. Does it take other things into account such as freshness, layout, bounce rate? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | followuk0 -
Re-naming pages without affecting SEO
Due to the management software used for a lot of our websites, the URLs for specific pages appears as: brand.com/page/pagename/number I want to add slug URLs so that they appear as: brand.com/pagename First of all, do you think this is an effective use of my time and will it significantly benefit SEO in the long run. Secondly, these pages have developed a decent PA over time and I don't want to lose that. Will adding 301s for all the renamed pages be enough to not have a negative effect?
On-Page Optimization | | maxweb1 -
On-page SEO optimization
hi there! Is it possible not to be in the first 20 or 30 positions in the SERPs after executing onpage SEO actions (keyword optimization, metatags, ....) even for keywords for which there's not "too much" competition? Is there a way of visualize the pages indexed by the google bot? (the pages especifically, not the number) in order to discard indexing problems? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr1 -
SEOmoz and Wordpress SEO plugin
I made a lot of changes with Wordpress SEO by Yoast before I signed up with SEOmoz. But SEOmoz doesn't seem to see those changes. I am still being told I have multiple meta descriptions. I don't know why but SEOmoz is seeing the default meta description and not the one I wrote using the Yoast plugin. How can I get SEOmoz to see those changes? Edit: Google has not updated all the changes I made with Wordpress SEO.
On-Page Optimization | | dealblogger0 -
SEO Location Pages - ALT Image Tag Question
Hello Guru's, I have a Hire Website whereby you can rent products online. I have created different Location pages for these which are in essence the same pages page but with different location specific urls, title tags , on page content etc etc. This helps me to rank for local search. These location pages also display 20 products per page. My question is Should I make the ALT IMAGE TEXT location specific for each of the 20 products . Example - Steam Cleaner Rental in "location" or should I only amend a few of the Atl Image Texts to be location specific. I don't want to come accross as spammy in google eyes but I also don't want to be seen as having duplicate content , images etc etc What do you think ? thanks Sarah.
On-Page Optimization | | SarahCollins0 -
Does Changing Hosting Provider Affect SEO?
I am having a site with more than 1,500 visits per day and I have suffered from two "blackouts" of one day each with my actual hosting Provider. I would like to change the Hosting Provider, but I am afraid of losing lots of visitors if I do the change. The change will be to a dedicated IP and the location of the IP will be in the same country. Will my site be affected on SEO results as a consecuence of this change? Thanks and regards Maria
On-Page Optimization | | goperformancelabs0 -
Will a Media Wiki guides section affect my sites SEO?
Hello, I currently run a Wordpress site that has a large guides section. I've reached the point where a lot of the larget guides need to be split into smaller posts which then link to each other. As we all know, long guides are not always user friendly. I've taken this oppurtunity to revamp the guides section and I am considering using Media Wiki to turn the Wordpress posts in to a full Wiki Knowledge Base. However this raises some questions for me.. 1. Will doing this impact my sites SEO? 2. Does Media Wiki use internal nofollow links? 3. Are there dangers of duplicate content? 4. Do you have any experience using Media Wiki, and what are your thoughts? I'd appreciate your views on this problem. Thanks Joe
On-Page Optimization | | Fubra0