With the increased use of popups on sites - when you enter,
when you leave, while you are there - Popup killers (or
stoppers) are all the rage. 

Companies use Popup killers as a marketing tool for
frustrated webusers  - they kill the Popup, the webuser uses
their service be it as an ISP or Toolbar.

New ISP Disks, Toolbars, and Browsers all now come with some
form of Popup killer.  While we all want to stop the
frustration of having several popups being delivered while
surfing around the web, to the webmaster a Popup killer can
totally kill a site's normal functionality.

** What do I mean?

If I said rename a Popup killer to a Javascript killer,
(which is how some Popup killers work), then you wil get the
gist!

With some SEOs advocating hiding links that they don't want
a search engine to spider or to hide affiliate links within
Javascript functions, having a user visit your site with a
Popup killer enabled could kill more than that annoying
Popup.

It could mean that when a user clicks on your apply button
or affiliate link, it won't work! The user can click on it
as often as they like.  It won't work!

This could be costing you sales and applications.

** We tested it out!

We tested this on our Loans site (www.polarloans.co.uk).  We
delivered 1,000 visits to the site where the application
process was a javascript function.  We had 1 application.

We then switched the apply buttons and links to a normal
HREF link and sent another 1000 visits to it.  We have a 10
fold increase in applications.

The only on-page changes were the Apply button links and we
drove the visits via PPC spend.

** What can you do?

It maybe time you looked at the major links on your site to
your product sale pages on affiliate links.  If they are
running as Javascript functions it may be wise to try
switching them to normal HREF links and test the results.

You can always change them back if you need to but consider
the potential revenue option.

It certainly has worked for us!

 Jason Hulott is Director of J2 Squared, leading specialists in Internet Consultancy  whose specific aim is to drive more revenue to websites. Their main area of focus are the insurance, finance, and automotive industries.