Warning! Google blocking ads

Does your company have Internet ads that pop up unexpectedly, play loud blaring music, or cause the browser to wait ten seconds before it can see content on your site? If so, you may want to reconsider your marketing strategy or risk your ads being blocked by Google. Google announced a new Chrome feature to protect users of its market-leading Chrome web browser from intrusive ads with a plan that could improve the web browsing experience for millions of people across the globe, but also raises questions about Google’s ever increasing market power.
The new Chrome feature, scheduled to debut next year, won’t interfere with all ads but will block ads that Google considers particularly intrusive. Google is publishing guidelines to help site owners understand which ads are likely to be blocked and hopes that most publishers will drop the most annoying ad formats from their sites, improving the browsing experience for everyone.
“The industry needs to do better at producing ads that are less annoying and that are quicker to load. I think we need to do a better job of that as an industry,” said Google CEO Larry Page in 2015.
Google recently ran a worldwide survey created by the Coalition for Better Ads, an industry organisation dedicated to improving online advertising. The Coalition conducted extensive research on consumer preferences for online ads to identify what ads annoyed people the most. The Coalition also helped Google draft the ad quality standards that Google will be enforcing. Ads found to be the most annoying were those which interrupted, distracted and cluttered the browsers’ experience.
This new Chrome feature raises antitrust concerns, as Google is privately held and arguably the biggest company in the advertising business. This new standard of control on the Internet could actually be a bit of a gray area in ominous territory. Ultimately, most regulatory agencies may overlook this enhanced control, since Google is working to improve the Internet experience, but this has yet to be seen.
With all of the theories to the negative, Google is trying to influence standards across the Internet in a positive way. In the past, they have rewarded websites with higher Google search results that have more content than ads, those that load quickly, and sites that use the secure SSL encryption standard.
I encourage all companies to analyse their ad practices or risk getting ads blocked in the quest for their site to reach the elusive top search result in the Google universe.