Hijacking the back button and SEO: Gaming Navboost, Exploring Google’s Spam Policies, and Aggressive Advertising

In Episode 14 of ‘SEO From The Front Lines”, I cover how some publishers are hijacking the browser back button and providing a feed of articles that drives users to more publisher content, including sponsored content and ads. That’s versus allowing them to return to the sites they visited from… Disabling, or hijacking the back button, is a tricky and deceptive tactic, since users might not know they actually stayed on the same site. And that’s especially the case when visitors arrive on the site from Google Discover since the publisher feed looks very similar to the Discover feed.

I also cover some reasons that some publishers are choosing to hijack the back button. For example, driving users to a publisher’s feed after hitting the back button can yield more pageviews, more ad impressions, and more ad revenue. But there’s another possible benefit of doing this… It can lead to more engagement for users that remain on the site, even if that’s not what the user intended to do. And with Google’s Navboost system at play, which tracks 13 months of user interaction signals (and can impact rankings), publishers could be gaming Navboost. And that led me to Google’s spam policies, if Google should issue manual actions for hijacking the back button, or if they should just tackle it algorithmically. I also cover how hijacking the back button was often the tip of the iceberg from an aggressive and deceptive advertising situation (and how some sites employing that tactic have seen big drops during major algorithm updates, including broad core updates).

And I end the video with some advice for publishers that might be currently hijacking the back button. My recommendation is to run a user study to better understand how real, objective users feel about having their back button hijacked, not being able to easily leave a site, etc. By running a user study, publishers can listen to, and watch, frustrated users on their own sites. It might just lead to publishers reevaluating their decision to hijack the back button.

00:00 Hijacking the browser back button and its impact on SEO.

01:32 Reasons publishers are hijacking the back button.

02:59 What the feed of content and ads looks like when the back button is hijacked.

03:57 Google’s stance on publishers hijacking or disabling the back button.

05:42 An introduction to Navboost and Google tracking 13 months of user interaction signals.

07:53 Google’s spam policies.

09:40 A Navboost twist and negative user interactions signals.

11:21 Aggressive advertising and broad core update impact for sites hijacking the back button.

12:47 My case study about The SEO Engagement Trap.

14:11 Publishers have serious decisions to make about ‘back button hijacking’.

14:36 Running a user study to understand user frustration from hijacking.

16:02 Quick recap and read my latest blog post covering hijacking the back button. Read my blog post covering 'back button hijacking' and its impact on SEO: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/hijacking-the-back-button-gaming-navboost/

Google’s Core Algorithm Updates and The Power of User Studies: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/google-core-ranking-updates-user-studies/ Visualizing The SEO Engagement Trap:

https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/user-frustration-behavior-flow-google-analytics/

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