In their ongoing quest to make mobile search more user friendly, Google will be cracking down on ads that encourage you to download a website’s mobile app. This is not the first time Google has implemented a radical change to search results.
Earlier this year, the search engine giant announced that if your site wasn’t mobile friendly then your mobile search results would be penalized resulting in lower search rankings. At the time, Google was adamant that this was to ensure mobile search results would be better for users. This time the reasoning is no different.
According to Daniel Bathgate, a Google search engineer:
Our analysis shows that it is not a good search experience and can be frustrating for users because they are expecting to see the content of the Web page.
So how will it work and who will be affected?
Beginning on November 1, if your site redirects a user to download your app instead of showing the requested search results then you will gradually see your search rankings reduced. This will not affect other ads within you site, only the ones that push your app.
Of course, this latest algorithm change is not without controversy as several large brands, including Yelp are fighting this update believing that Google is unnecessarily targeting them. Google is sticking by its claim that the shift will provide better user experience for search.
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