Popups aren’t bad. Bad popups are bad.

[Jeff Kershner]

Ilana from AutoLeadStar published an article over on the DealerRefresh blog titled "Popups aren’t bad. Bad popups are bad." I recommend clicking the link and reading the article, then come back over here.

As the title suggests, the article is about those WONDERFUL Popups (that many of us currently have hosted on our dealer websites) - something we've discussed many many times here in the forums; chat popups being the most popular in the discussions and gripes.

Ilana takes a slightly different approach in her article and suggests that popups are NOT the issue, rather bad popups are the issue.

What makes for a bad popup?

1. Bad design
2. Too many form fields
3. Irrelevance

A few examples of no so good popups are even provided.

I tend to agree with Ilana that popups, when executed properly, are an effective tool. However, most popups (especially in our industry) are just BAD. My biggest peeve is number 2 on her list - Too Many Form Fields. The example used in the article is one that I'm personally very familiar with.

First name
Last name
Email
Phone
Zip

Then let's add some more fields by asking what vehicle they're interested in - who cares what vehicle they are interested in, we can get that information once on the phone or in the store. Too many fields scares the poop out of most of us, yet we have popups with 8+ fields and expect them to convert. Sometimes we have to thank someone on the OEM level for such thinking.

It's 2017 - What has been your experience with popups on your dealership website?

 

[craigh]

Popups should only be on the pages where they belong.
The homepage is not where they belong.

Find out the user's intent, then pop up things they won't hate you for.
Most sites I'm looking at right now are about 40-60% used vehicle traffic, and yet I almost never see used vehicle popups.
Looking at 2 sites that have popups right now, both of them have < 10% new vehicle traffic, and yet they each have a popup promoting a single financing rate/payment for a single vehicle.

I agree with the article, but even a good popup that only caters to 1% of your website traffic is a bad idea.
Popups with intelligent prompts are the solution - if someone searches for Camry, popup the Camry promotion.

 

[Ryan Everson]

It's easy to point out bad examples, wish the article would have offered good examples as well.

We have the best luck of creating highly targeted and well designed popups with Optinmonster. - http://optinmonster.com/

 

[Alexander Lau]

It's impossible for the likes of Google to police what constitutes a bad pop-up versus what is good, so they've put the clamp down on them in general (with SEO penalization factors). I would agree there are plenty of lightboxes or "pop-ups" that are effective. I suppose it comes down to what Google and their minions deem "usable."

I suppose if a pop-up is converting, use at your own risk.

I completely agree with @craigh on relevancy.

 

[harry_phillips]

You raise a valid point about Google’s stance on pop-ups, but it's important to note that not all pop-ups are bad. When done correctly, pop-ups can actually enhance user engagement and boost conversions without negatively impacting SEO. The key is to make them relevant, non-intrusive, and well-timed.

For example, pop-up surveys can be a fantastic way to gather customer feedback, improve user experience, and make visitors feel heard. These surveys are less likely to be penalized by Google because they are often relevant and timed appropriately to the user’s interaction on the site.

In short, pop-ups, when done thoughtfully, can provide real value to both businesses and users without running afoul of Google's guidelines.

EDIT: removed SEO spam link.

 

[Greg_Gifford]

ok - i'm not going to argue about good/bad popups - that's a debate for another thread, and also for the dealer/customer angle...

all I'm going to point out is that Google will penalize a site - or even a page on a site - if there's an automatic popup that covers any content on the page.

so ignoring the fact that ANY popups annoy the crap out of 99% of your customers, if you want to keep them because the 1% of customers fill them out, you have to realize you're still in a worse situation than you would be by not having them at all - the demotion in search results will mean less traffic/conversions anyway...

 

[Eric Miltsch]

ok - i'm not going to argue about good/bad popups - that's a debate for another thread, and also for the dealer/customer angle...

all I'm going to point out is that Google will penalize a site - or even a page on a site - if there's an automatic popup that covers any content on the page.

so ignoring the fact that ANY popups annoy the crap out of 99% of your customers, if you want to keep them because the 1% of customers fill them out, you have to realize you're still in a worse situation than you would be by not having them at all - the demotion in search results will mean less traffic/conversions anyway...

Greg,

Curious to hear your take on Google's perspective on required age gate pop-ups on cannabis & alcohol sites. And what about the obligatory email capture/10% off pop-up that literally every eCommerce site has? Google seems to give those sites a pass,

 

[csabatka1]

Greg,

Curious to hear your take on Google's perspective on required age gate pop-ups on cannabis & alcohol sites. And what about the obligatory email capture/10% off pop-up that literally every eCommerce site has? Google seems to give those sites a pass,

Interstitials and dialogs | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers

Use banners instead of interstitials and large dialogs on your website.

developers.google.com

Mandatory interstitials​

Certain sites are required to show an interstitial due to the kind of content they are publishing. For example, a casino site may need to show an age gate, which is a type of interstitial where the user must provide their age before accessing the content.

Mandatory interstitials are exempted from the guidelines discussed in this document; however, if possible, we recommend that sites follow these best practices:

• Ensure that the content is overlaid with the interstitial. This will ensure that Google can still at least index some of the content and potentially show it in search results.
• Don't redirect the incoming HTTP requests to a different page for collecting consent or providing data. Redirecting all URLs to a single page will remove all but that one page from search results, as Googlebot can only fetch that page.

For content behind a mandatory age gate for adult users, we recommend allowing Googlebot to crawl your content without triggering the age gate. You can do this by verifying Googlebot requests and serving the content without age gate.

 

[Greg_Gifford]

yeah, age-gating and required privacy notices don't count - it's the others that get you demoted...

 

[csabatka1]

yeah, age-gating and required privacy notices don't count - it's the others that get you demoted...

Depends on how you display the popup. Googlebot can't execute if using a cookie or session storage approach.