They had been talking about it for some time, but only a few days ago the new Google Chrome block became operational: all those advertisements that consume too many system resources and those considered aggressive will be blocked and will not appear in the search engine results.
In this article we will try to clarify how the block works, defining the types of ads that will be considered too “heavy” and the categories of ads considered aggressive.
ADS AND RESOURCES CONSUMPTION
The definition of advertisement is provided directly by Google, which states that “an announcement is too heavy when it falls within the 99.9th percentile for data consumption, CPU consumption per minute or total CPU consumption“. An ad that falls into this category is called Heavy Ad.
This means that Google will draw up a “ranking” of each ad on the internet based on resources consumption; the part of the ranking that represents 0.1% of the total, starting from the heaviest, will be blocked. This system allows Google to change the thresholds in the future depending on the evolution of the market. At the moment, however, the following thresholds are set:
- CPU: use for more than 60 seconds;
- Data: more than 4 MB.
The purpose of Google in this intervention is to find a balance between the interests of the advertisers and the user-experience of the end users to whom the advertisements are addressed.
GOOGLE AND AGGRESSIVE ADS
As anticipated, the block will not only affect the ads that consume too much data, but also the advertisements considered aggressive.
Respecting the standards set by the consortium, Google will try to eliminate too intrusive advertisements and disguised advertisements through a report sent directly to the webmasters, who will have 30 days to remove and adapt them. The block will take into account 12 types of ads that are considered deceptive or too intrusive for the user.
The 12 types of ads, categorised by desktop and mobile and considered aggressive, have been listed by the Coalition for Better Ads, which dictates the standards that the advertisements must have in order to be considered user-friendly.
Let’s look at the various types in detail:
- Pop-up Ads: the name already shows why this type of ad will be blocked: pop-ups block the main content of the page. Usually, they appear a few seconds after loading the main page and are considered among the most annoying ads for users;
- Automatic videos with audio: these types of ads, considered aggressive, lead the user to get distracted from the main content of the page and to quickly close the site. These announcements therefore contribute to drastically increase the bounce rate;
- Announcements with countdown: this type of advertisements usually appears before a landing page is loaded and forces the user to wait for the end of the countdown to be able to view the desired content;
- Sticky banner: it is a fixed advertising banner within a website, which prevents the user from viewing the page as it is covered by the banner;
- Ads with a density greater than 30%: by switching to the mobile version, the advertisements that occupy 30% more space than the main content of the page are considered aggressive;
- Ads with flash animations: they are announcements characterised by the presence of flash animations, often with backgrounds that change their colour, which lead the user to get distracted from the main content of the page;
- Ads that appear at the top of the page: they are the ads that force the user to scroll the entire page before being able to view the desired content.
From what has been said, it is clear that advertisers need to take much more care in designing advertisements, otherwise there will be the risk of not seeing them published.
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