In a week when we celebrated the World Wide Web's 25th birthday, the stories that caught our radar were all user-focused. Google's announcement that it would penalise sites that stubbornly insist on using pop-ups, two new Twitter features set to squeeze troll accounts and tweets, the launch of video ads on Pinterest, and PayPal — the sultan of our hearts — signalling a return to Turkey, were among the stories that put a smile on our faces last week.

You'll find the details below. Enjoy the read!

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web meeting humanity, after the internet's own founding! #InternautDay pic.twitter.com/NR0gtHGmgS

— ReputeUs (@ReputeUs) 23 August 2016

The Web turns exactly 25!

Last week we celebrated 25 years since the World Wide Web — the Web, as we know it — was made publicly available.

In 1980, Berners-Lee built a piece of software and a data centre around the idea of creating a network that people working at CERN could use. Through this system, CERN staff could access pages containing information and make use of it. In 1989, the idea was developed further, and the goal emerged of building a vast network the whole of humanity could use. Thanks to the work that began with this goal, the World Wide Web was made available to the public on 23 August 1991.

Developed and launched under the leadership of computer engineer Tim Berners-Lee, the World Wide Web laid the foundation for the internet we use today. We've witnessed, up close, just how far the Web has developed, evolved and become boundless in the short space of 25 years.

Google Decides to Penalise Some Mobile Sites That Show Pop-Up Ads!

Google, which has been making headlines lately with metric updates to its search algorithm and recently announced two further changes to its search results, is now starting to penalise mobile sites that show pop-up ads that are hard to close.

The first of these changes concerns the "Mobile-friendly" label that shows in search results whether a site works well on mobile devices. Introduced two years ago, this label told users in mobile search results whether a site was mobile-friendly or not. But now, according to Google's own data, since 85% of the sites listed in mobile search results are mobile-friendly, the label is being removed from mobile search results.

The second change concerns pop-up ads — something we've all been shaking our heads over, looking for a fix. When users try to access certain sites on mobile, they're confronted with full-screen pop-up ads that are hard to close (or impossible to close at all). In these situations, users can end up clicking the ads even without meaning to. To put an end to a situation users have complained loudly about, Google has decided to penalise sites that show pop-up ads that are hard, or impossible, to close.

Google has announced that, from 10 January 2017, it will lower the mobile search ranking of sites showing aggressive pop-up ads, and states that this won't apply to every site — only those that make content genuinely hard to access will be affected by the change. Well played, Google!

PayPal Is Coming Back

PayPal, which decided to halt its operations in Turkey at the end of last May, has now rolled up its sleeves to make a comeback.

PayPal, the world's most popular online payment system, announced in late May that it was halting its Turkish operations after its licence application to the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency was rejected, and stopped its services shortly afterwards. Word now has it that it has kicked off work to resume operations in Turkey.

With a total of 179 million users and a transaction volume of $18 billion, PayPal was also among the most-used online payment systems in Turkey. In fact, immediately after PayPal — which held a 12% market share in Turkish e-commerce and roughly $800 million in transaction volume — halted its operations, various petitions calling for it to reopen were launched, gathering close to 20,000 signatures.

According to reports, PayPal has rolled up its sleeves to serve Turkey again. It's reported that PayPal will resume operations in Turkey with its Cross Border system in March 2017, and plans to move its servers back to Turkey towards the end of 2017.

Under the Cross Border system, people abroad will be able to shop from Turkey via PayPal, while people in Turkey won't be able to shop from abroad at all. However, once PayPal's servers move to Turkey, users will be able to carry out all transactions without any restrictions.

Twitter Rolls Out Two New Features That'll Give Us Some Relief and Upset the Trolls

Twitter, which has long struggled with spam tweets and troll accounts, has announced two new features developed as a countermeasure against this kind of negative behaviour.

Thanks to the new features Twitter has announced for notifications, users will now be able to control, more comfortably, which accounts get in touch with them and what content they want to see.

One of Twitter's new features gives users the chance to manually configure the notifications they receive. From now on, users will be able to limit the notifications they get to just the people they follow. This won't affect the user experience in any other way. Users will also be able to reach the Notification Settings screen via a small settings icon added directly to the notifications tab.

In February 2015, Twitter had introduced a new feature called the Quality Filter for verified accounts, letting those accounts hide tweets containing threats, abuse or spam from their notifications. Now this feature has been switched on for other users too.

When users switch on the Quality Filter in their notification settings, tweets that Twitter flags via various signals — based on accounts' behaviour and structure — will get caught by the filter. The same tweet shared multiple times, or automated tweets, won't show up on users' notification screens.

This feature does raise a few question marks, though. Twitter doesn't specify exactly what structure counts as an "automated" tweet. So it's a big open question whether individual accounts and brands that use social media management tools to send tweets automatically will get caught by this filter too. There's no clear statement on the matter, but it's worth saying that users can turn the feature off whenever they like.

Sponsored Video Ads Launch on Pinterest

Sponsored video ads — a format present on many social media platforms in recent years and frequently chosen by advertisers — have now joined Pinterest's advertising options. Having seen video views rise by 60%, Pinterest turned that into an advantage and announced the launch of sponsored video ads.

According to an announcement on Pinterest's official blog, the new sponsored video ads play through Pinterest's built-in video player. Once a video opens, the advertiser's products are listed underneath it. The new ad format is also combined with Promoted Pins, letting users go on to buy the products or services shown.

According to the information provided, the ads run by partners under agreement are performing at a pretty strong level. Advertising partners note that Pinterest's new video ads are four times more memorable than non-video ads.

Pinterest Sponsored Video ads are, for now, only available in the US and the UK. It's not yet known when they'll be activated for other countries.