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
-
Do WooCommerce product tags effect SEO?
I'm just curious if I need these product tags and if they impact in any way at all SEO? - whether that be positively or negatively. on1iRin
On-Page Optimization | | xdunningx0 -
Yoast SEO doesn't recognize images
Hi, I'm currently adding alt tags to my images but the Yoast SEO plug in in Wordpress states on all my pages “No images appear in this page, consider adding some as appropriate.“ while I do have images on my pages. What could be the problem? Best, Rik
On-Page Optimization | | bbuildingbusiness0 -
Does Bolding Text Have Any Impact on SEO?
Someone told me it does but I thought that was old school way of thinking. Any thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | tryfantasy1 -
Does Rel=canonical affect google shopping feed?
I have a client who gets a good portion of their sales (~40%) from Google Product Feeds, and for those they want each (Product X Quantity) to have it’s own SKU, as they often get 3 listings in a given Google shopping query, i.e. 2,4,8 units of a given product. However, we are worried about this creating duplicate content on the search side. Do you know if we could rel=canonical on the site without messing with their google shopping results? The crux of the issue is that they want the products to appear distinct for the product feed, and unified for the web so as not to dilute. Thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | VISISEEKINC0 -
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 -
SEO for luxury brands!?
Hi all, It is widely known fact that you will be a bit in trouble if you will need to do SEO for luxury brand that is not willing to sacrifice design, layout etc. for SEO purposes. So basically - there is no content to optimize and there is almost no keywords to rank! 😉 Just wondering - how would be the best to approach such kind of terrible situation? Regards, Jungle
On-Page Optimization | | Jungles0 -
Any SEO effect(s) / impact of Meta No Cache?
Hi SEOMoz Guys, Hope you guys are doing well. I've been searching online and bumped into this archived page (http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/34982/meta-nocache-affect-ranking). I would like to get an updated take on this issue whether or not the meta no cache code on a page bears negative/positive or no SEO impact / effect. <meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache" /> <meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-cache"/> Thanks! Steve
On-Page Optimization | | sjcbayona-412182 -
Best SEO structure for blog
What is the best SEO page/link structure for a blog with, say 100 posts that grows at a rate of 4 per month? Each post is 500+ words with charts/graphics; they're not simple one paragraph postings. Rather than use a CMS I have a hand crafted HTML/CSS blog (for tighter integration with the parent site, some dynamic data effects, and in general to have total control). I have a sidebar with headlines from all prior posts, and my blog home page is a 1 line summary of each article. I feel that after 100 articles the sidebar and home page have too many links on them. What is the optimal way to split them up? They are all covering the same niche topic that my site is about. I thought of making the side bar and home page only have the most recent 25 postings, and then create an archive directory for older posts. But categorizing by time doesn't really help someone looking for a specific topic. I could tag each entry with 2-3 keywords and then make the sidebar a sorted list of tags. Clicking on a tag would then show an intermediate index of all articles that have that tag, and then you could click on an article title to read the whole article. Or is there some other strategy that is optimal for SEO and the indexing robots? Is it bad to have a blog that is too heirarchical (where articles are 3 levels down from the root domain) or too flat (if there are 100s of entries)? Thanks for any thoughts or pointers.
On-Page Optimization | | scanlin0