Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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
-
Are Wildcard Subdomain Hurting my SEO?
I have some sites with a lot of categories (category, sub-category, sub-subcategory) and locations (country, state/territory, city). To avoid listing pages really deep in my hierarchy I used wildcard subdomains for the locations, but lately I have been told that might be hurting my overall SEO efforts. I have a lot of URLs like https://city-state-country.example.com on one side of the domain and example.com/category/subcategory/subsubcategory on the other. In the middle you see stuff like city-state-country.example.com/category/subcategory/subsubcategory and everything in between. Would I be better off moving the locations to the right side of the domain name? Then you might find stuff like example.com/country/state/city/category/subcategory/subsubcategory and everything in between. I think I could do the new rewrite rules fairly easily since every country slug is just two characters long.
On-Page Optimization | | PostAlmostAnything0 -
How to fix duplicate content for homepage and index.html
Hello, I know this probably gets asked quite a lot but I haven't found a recent post about this in 2018 on Moz Q&A, so I thought I would check in and see what the best route/solution for this issue might be. I'm always really worried about making any (potentially bad/wrong) changes to the site, as it's my livelihood, so I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. Moz, SEMRush and several other SEO tools are all reporting that I have duplicate content for my homepage and index.html (same identical page). According to Moz, my homepage (without index.html) has PA 29 and index.html has PA 15. They are both showing Status 200. I read that you can either do a 301 redirect or add rel=canonical I currently have a 301 setup for my http to https page and don't have any rel=canonical added to the site/page. What is the best and safest way to get rid of duplicate content and merge the my non index and index.html homepages together these days? I read that both 301 and canonical pass on link juice but I don't know what the best route for me is given what I said above. Thank you for reading, any input is greatly appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | dreservices0 -
Is Wix still terrible for SEO?
In Australia, I hear it over and over again that Wix is literally the worst site builder you can use due to it's poor site build for SEO. Has anyone here got some tangible reasons for why this is? As I am constantly getting asked this by clients who are using Wix and want me to help with their SEO.
On-Page Optimization | | UndergrndMarketing0 -
Can lazy loading of images affect indexing?
I am trying to diagnose a massive drop in Google rankings for my website and noticed that the date of the ranking and traffic drop coincides with Google suddenly only indexing about 10% of my images, whereas previously it was indexing about 95% of them. Wondering if addition of lazy load script to images (so they don't load from the server until visible in the browser) could cause this index blocking?
On-Page Optimization | | Gavin.Atkinson1 -
Can "window.location" javascript on homepage affect seo?
Hi! I need to add a splashpage to my wordpress site. I use "window.location" javascript on the homepage to redirect on the splashpage (controlled by cookie to redirect only for the first access). Can this technique affect the SEO on homepage? Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | StudioCiteroni0 -
Does Hiding the article´s date in a blog affect SEO?
We are running a blog and would like to hide date, as users find the article less interesting if they are dated more than 2 years ago. Will hiding the article´s date in a blog affecto SEO? Thanks in advance u2cJxsr
On-Page Optimization | | goperformancelabs0 -
Contact Form On Homepage - Best Practices
How important is it to have a contact form on the homepage of a service-based business? I am trying to decide if having a form on front page will increase the number of people filling it out.
On-Page Optimization | | TheSEODR0 -
How do Maximize WordPress with 2 SEO Plugins
I have 2 WordPress SEO Plugins, Yoast and All-in-One SEO. I have tried like heck to make them work together, but every time I crawl my site here, I get multiple error messages. My question is, how can I tweak the title settings to avoid having multiple meta desctiptions, titles etc.
On-Page Optimization | | TheSportsDaddy0