Google has recently announced that they will be penalizing mobile sites with obtrusive pop-ups in SEO results. If you are using Sumo (previously SumoMe) to collect email addresses or make announcements on your website there is a concern that this will affect your search ranking. There is a clever way to configure your campaigns however to eliminate or minimize this impact.

First of all you will want to use the “Scroll Box” app instead of the “List Builder” pop-up. Or, if you are using the List Builder, use it in its embed format. Secondly, you can customize the Display Rules of your Scroll Box campaign to not display on mobile devices, or create two separate campaigns; one for Mobile and one for Desktop.

As you can see in the flowchart above, you will need to create 2 separate campaigns, as the “Display Rules” are only available on a campaign level. You cannot change display rules for different scroll boxes within a campaign.

Add a “Don’t Show”> “On Mobile Devices” rule to your campaign to 100% ensure that you won’t be penalized in Google SEO.

Then (if you want) create a second campaign with a “Don’t Show”> “On Desktop Devices” rule. Make the Scroll box for this campaign as small as possible or with settings that make it show up at a scroll percentage further down the page. Or Instead of doing a scroll box, make this a List Builder campaign that is embedded in the page (will not be penalized.)

By categorizing your campaigns by device you can ensure that you eliminate or minimize your SEO penalty, while still building your subscriber base.

You can run the Google Mobile Friendly test to see how Google feels about your mobile site.