Beginning on the 10th of January next year, Google will punish sites that carry intrusive or 'hard-to-dismiss' pop-up adverts, by ranking them lower in the search results.Any interstitial adverts that cover up content, or have to be closed by the user before they can access the content, will feel the brunt of the new changes most.However, Google was keen to stress that not all pages containing pop-ups will be affected, as long as they do not impact the usability of the selected page, like those that are required for logins or accepting terms and conditions.Additionally, the company is also making a minor change that involves removing the 'mobile-friendly' label from pages that are easier to read on a smartphone, or tablet.Google said that 85% of all pages it shows are now mobile-friendly, so by removing the label it will simply clean up the results page.
