Definition:
An interstitial is an ad that takes up the entire screen of a website and forces users to see the advertising before they can see the content on the page. It typically shows an image, video, or animation that promotes a product or service and encourages people to click on the ad to learn more.
Although interstitial ads can be quite effective in driving traffic to a website or product, many users find them intrusive and annoying. Therefore, interstitial ads may not be the best option for all marketing campaigns.
What are interstitials or interstitials for?
Interstitial ads can be used in many different ways, from promoting new products or services to increasing website traffic using SEO. While interstitial ads can be very effective in capturing users’ attention and getting them interested in your product or service, they are also sometimes criticized for being intrusive or disrupting the user experience. In general, interstitial ads can be an effective way to promote your brand and drive sales if you are able to carefully manage and optimize them.
Drawbacks of interstitial ads
Interstitial ads can be very effective at increasing website traffic, driving sales, and promoting products or services, but they can also be intrusive and disrupt the user experience. When interstitial ads are used too often or appear before users have had a chance to interact with the content on the page, they can lead to frustration, confusion, and potentially cause them to leave the site altogether.
How Interstitials and SEO Affect
Since 2017, Google introduced a change in mobile search results, which would be bad news for the web that uses interstitials. Thus, it ensured that such pages that used interstitials that block user content, would lose visibility in mobile search results. An announcement, which of course, does not affect all interstitials.
The interstitials that google allows are:
- Legal interstitials for cookies and age verification, etc.
- Logins for content that is not publicly indexable.
- Discrete banners that can be easily discarded and don’t take up too much space, such as app install banners in Safari and Chrome.