Will Google Chrome Block Your Ads?
A new ad-blocker from Google Chrome is described not as a blocker but as just a “filter.” The effort by Google is to stop the intrusive pop-ups, auto video ads and other large ads that obscure content.
While I was researching Google Chrome for this blog, I clicked on the New York Times story on blocking pop-ups and received a full-page pop-up. My Chrome is obviously not updated.
“[By] filtering out disruptive ad experiences, we can help keep the entire ecosystem of the web healthy,” Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, Google VP, wrote in a blog post. The New York Times said that, “For the most part, the update has been embraced by the industry. After all, it seems like a win for publishers, quality advertisers and users alike.”
Yet Google is starting to make changes in its quality standards as well. Ad-fatigue (ads that run too long without changing content), duplicate content or “insufficient original content” is now not allowed.
Google is not only looking at the quality of the ad and how it is delivered, but also the destination of the ad to determine if there is an approved experience. Google’s goal is to make sure that consumers have a good experience when they click an ad, so the destination “must offer unique value to users and be functional, useful and easy to navigate.”
Ironically, in my research for this blog, I clicked on the New York Times story and received a full-screen pop-up. Evidently my Google Chrome has not been updated as of yet.
If the web is a road we all travel, Google is in control of the traffic lights. And to be successful we all need to better follow the rules of the road.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.