Google Search Console Notices For Intrusive Interstitials

Google is sending out notices about intrusive interstitials to sites that are placing these interstitials in a possibly annoying manner on their sites. The email subject lines read “Improve your page experience by removing intrusive interstitials from domaingoeshere.”

I have yet to see a screenshot of this notice, so it is hard to say if this is a manual action or some sort of just friendly reminder from Google? I mean, I do not see intrusive interstitial on the list of manual actions yet. We do know there is an algorithmic action there with the page experience update (even for desktop pages), but Google doesn’t email via Google Search Console for algorithmic issues, they email for manual actions, not algorithms….

I spotted a thread at Google Webmaster Help with one person writing the message the received:

I have received the email whose title is “Improve your page experience by removing intrusive interstitials from mtckitchen.com”. I have a pop-up sign-up form and I wonder if there is the best way to keep the sign-up form visible to our audience but not make it an intrusive interstitial. If you have any idea, I would like to hear that! Thank you.

Also, David Iwanow shared on Twitter that he spotted one last week also:

hmm @JohnMu any guidance on the interstitial notice penalty notices in Google Search Console that some sites are seeing? I haven’t received one yet so don’t have a screenshot to share… pic.twitter.com/8Pu8HAouiI

— David Iwanow 🇺🇦 💉💉💉🇺🇦 (@davidiwanow) April 14, 2022

Google does have a detailed help document on this topic explaining that “intrusive interstitials and dialogs are page elements that obstruct users’ view of the content, usually for promotional purposes. Interstitials are overlays on the whole page and dialogs are overlays only on a part of the page, sometimes also obfuscating the underlying content.”

Google added “Intrusive dialogs and interstitials make it hard for Google and other search engines to understand your content, which may lead to poor search performance. Equally, if users find your site hard to use, they are unlikely to want to visit those websites again, including through search engines.”

So maybe it is not a manual action but a heads up from Google, hey – we are having issues understanding your content?

Anyone recently see a screenshot of this notice so we can validate this theory?

Here is a screenshot:

Here is what one of those messages from GSC looks like for intrusive interstitials. Again, NOT a manual action. It’s part of the page experience signal (which is lightweight), but you should still address. They impact the user experience. https://t.co/C65UnJ5c0M

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) April 19, 2022

Forum discussion at Twitter and Google Webmaster Help.