Yes. On a 390-pixel-wide phone, the discount pop-up or newsletter box that looks modest on a desktop covers most of the first screen, lands on top of the call button, and has a close target the size of a grain of rice. A homeowner with water on the floor does not hunt for the X; she presses back.
Google has treated intrusive interstitials on mobile as a negative since 2017, and the free audit reports any pop-up that covers a quarter or more of the first screen as a finding.1
What the audit measures
After the page loads in a phone-sized browser, the tap test measures how much of the first screen is covered by anything that appeared on top of it: a pop-up, a cookie card, a chat window. At 25% or more it is reported, with the share. The screenshot in the audit shows it exactly as the homeowner saw it. The first phone screen guide lists the other things that cover the screen; the monthly share of sites with a pop-up over the first screen is in the data section.
What to put there instead
- The offer, in the page. "$50 off your first service call" as a line under the headline is read by everyone and blocks no one.
- A thin bar, not a card. If you must announce something ("Now serving Clifton Park"), one line at the top that scrolls away.
- The call bar. The bottom edge of the screen is where the call and text buttons belong, which is also where the chat bubble usually sits. Choose the buttons.
- The exit offer, never. A pop-up that fires when the visitor moves to leave is the one that makes the back button the only exit.
Cookie banners
If you need one, keep it to a single line at the bottom with one button, and never let it cover the headline or the call bar. Most small contractor sites in the US do not need one at all; the banner usually arrived with a plugin, not a legal need. Ask whoever added it what it is for.
Our pop-up collects emails for the newsletter. Isn't that worth it?
Count the emails it collected last month against the calls a blocked first screen loses. For almost every service contractor the call is worth hundreds of times the email, and the form on the thank-you screen after a call collects the email anyway.
What about the chat bubble? Customers use it.
Some do, when someone is there to answer. If it is offline after 5 pm and sits where the call button should be, it is costing the evening calls. Put it in the second screen, keep the call bar at the bottom, and set it to hide when nobody is online.
Sources
- Google Search Central: page experience, including the guidance against intrusive interstitials and dialogs on mobile; Google Search Central blog, 2016: Helping users easily access content on mobile (the interstitial signal, effective January 2017).
- Pop-up threshold (25% of the first screen) and the tap test: how we measure contractor websites.
See this on your own site.
The free audit measures your site on a real phone: load time, the first screen, the call button, what Google's AI says about you next to the competitors. Written, back within one business day. No call.