The Verge reports on an announcement by Alphabet subsidiary Google that, beginning in January, it will change the way Web sites are ranked in results from its search engine. Sites featuring pop-up windows or interstitial adverts may appear lower in the results than they now do.
According to an Alphabet press release, 90% of Google's revenues during the first quarter of 2016 came from advertising.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2016, @01:43PM
Not a problem for a ad-driven whoremonger website because they'll just check for googlebot and serve up something without pop-ups and the like.
(Score: 3, Informative) by francois.barbier on Wednesday August 24 2016, @03:40PM
Until Google makes a visit with another user agent from another IP, notices the difference and penalize your website.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2016, @04:52PM
If they visit with a false user agent then they are breaking the TOS of whore website.
And doing so is a felony violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday August 24 2016, @05:25PM
Then a better solution is to crowdsource people who report the site, and google notices it doing something different for the googlebot. Then simply delist the site permanently and forever. Or instead, in the search results put a big scary warning of some sort.
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by francois.barbier on Wednesday August 24 2016, @05:30PM
Like they don't allow manual checks at Google? Or even browsing? Or verifying that GoogleBot works correctly? There's no reason at all they could visit your website with a real browser?
God forbid they use noscript while they do it!
/s