Thunderbolt Digital is a professional marketing agency Surrey who provide our clients with excellent digital services and assistance regarding their online campaigns. Our team of designers and marketers always keep our ear to the ground for news that could affect our clients, especially changes implemented by Google, which is why we’ve taken such notice of the company’s warning regarding advertisements.
Ad blocking has been around for a while now, and is always surrounded by heated opinions regarding the subject from both consumers and publishers, with the latest development being that Google has gotten involved, with plans to start blocking ‘annoying’ ads in Chrome by default.
Google has stated that they don’t want to simply block adverts, but ‘filter’ them; that is, they won’t be removing ads completely, just blocking those that lower the quality of users’ experience. The kind of ‘badvertising’ that Google is rallying against includes full-screen ads, pop-ups, timers and auto-playing videos – in other words, the sort of content that won’t be missed!
Google’s filter is set to become part of Chrome sometime next year, with the company giving advertisers a grace period to adhere to guidelines set out by Coalition for Better Ads. In fact, Google has already warned a number of their publishers about the upcoming changes advising them not of any specific dos and don’ts, but requesting that they visit Google’s Ad Experience Report and checking that any ads they’re currently hosting don’t violate the Better Ads Standards.
Of course, this move may seem counter-intuitive for a company that generates revenue from advertising, but this filtering system is an attempt to prevent the use of third-party ad blockers which, if successful, will obviously benefit Google in the long run. As it is, Google currently pays to be part of an ‘acceptable ads’ programme, allowing some of its ads to get through certain ad blocking extensions, and their imminent filter is simply a continuation of this, and a predictable next step for the internet giant.
In a similar move, Apple’s browser Safari is set to prevent video and audio autoplay and will allow users to set the browser to open web pages in ‘Reader mode’ by default, which strips away various elements and formatting, including ads. They are also working on blocking third-party tracking (including cookies) in the next version of their browser which, along with Google’s plans, seems to herald a new age of less passive browsers that may even help to shape what we see on the web as publishers scramble to cater to these new rules.