Google's new mobile algorithm

Update: On 17 March 2016 Google announced:

"Today we’re announcing that beginning in May, we’ll start rolling out an update to mobile search results that increases the effect of the ranking signal to help our users find even more pages that are relevant and mobile-friendly."

This suggests that from May 2016 responsive sites will see an extra boost in the search results and that there may be other mobile updates further into the future.

Is it really Mobilegeddon?

The impact of Google algorithms

The internet marketing world has always had to take notice of any new Google algorithms, such as Panda and Penguin, because of the way they impact on the performance of websites in searches.  Quite rightly, this has led in the past to better quality SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), where creating meaningful, interesting content is now essential and the more dubious SEO practices have largely disappeared.  Similarly, having a website that is generally poor, but crammed with keywords, no longer pushes that company to a first (or second or third or tenth) page appearance on a Google search. It takes an attractive website design, easy navigation around the site and carefully analysed, sound SEO with well-written, unique articles and interesting material such as eye-catching Infographics to achieve those sought after high rankings.

With the modern emphasis on internet marketing, rather than alternatives such as advertising in magazines, many companies are almost wholly dependent on positive results from online searches for the success or otherwise of their business.  This is why there has been such a huge build up and apprehension prior to the launch of Google’s latest algorithm, being implemented over the course of a week, starting on 21^st April 2015, which assesses how mobile friendly a website is, with the ultimate accolade of having a “mobile friendly” tag attached to those sites deemed worthy.  Their overall ranking (at least from mobile visitors) will also be affected if they are not considered to be sufficiently responsive to mobile use. The term “Mobilegeddon” was coined a few weeks prior to the algorithm’s roll-out and this has been used extensively in newspaper articles on the subject, however it seems that the algorithms impact on search engine performance was less than expected.

What is meant by “Mobile Friendly”?

There has been a huge growth in the use of mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets for internet searches.  With technological advances meaning that the internet can be accessed on the move, on trains or buses or even when walking to work, it has become vital for websites to adjust to the size of screen on which they are being viewed.  Our article on responsive website design for mobiles and tablets has more information about what can be done in this area.

The type of products and services for which people search can be anything from train times, booking a taxi, checking on the menu at a local restaurant, to trying to find a new flat to rent, house to buy or exotic holiday destination - indeed anything that people might look for on a standard device.  The convenience of being able to see the information displayed, in an easily readable and navigable form, is the essence of a website being assessed as “mobile friendly”.  With the growing tendency to use smartphones for internet searches, seeing the tag “mobile friendly” in one site shown in a search, when others do not have that tag, means that a mobile user is more likely to go to that site for information.

Google introduced a free mobile friendly testing tool which indicates how a website measures up to Google’s criteria.  Whilst this is extremely useful, there are other, similar, free tools available and it is important to test your site against more than one such tool, to have an objective assessment of what you have to do.