Google rolled out its new mobile-friendly algorithm, dubbed as “Mobile-geddon” on April 21st. This Pigeon update will give mobile-friendly websites a ranking boost in Google’s mobile Search Results and adversely affect the mobile rankings of the websites that are not Mobile Compliant.
Have a look at some important things about Mobile-geddon, which you should be aware of.
Understanding Mobile-geddon
Mobile-geddon is a term coined by webmasters for the Pigeon Update of Google. This update places Mobile Compatible sites at a higher rank, penalizing the sites that are not mobile-friendly by demoting them for the search made in Smartphone’s.
This update will not affect search results in Desktops, Laptops and even Tablets.
Having a mobile-friendly website means a website having a layout that responds to fit various screens. Responsive sites adjust the content and the layout of their pages to best suit various screen sizes, thus working well on Smartphone’s and giving users an enhanced experience.
Google brought this update specifically for mobile users to give them a good browsing experience as they now account for 60% of the total online traffic.
The new algorithm is on page by page basis i.e. if some of the pages in your website are mobile-friendly, they will get the benefit of this new rating system.
Once your website is mobile compatible, Google will crawl your web pages to determine if the web pages are mobile-friendly. The mobile friendly algorithm is run in real-time. It can take anywhere from a few hours to over 72 hours for the changes to get reflected, indexed and ranked accordingly, as per some early tests. This will also be dependent on how much content changes are brought in the website on a regular basis. Some massive sites might even take as long as a month’s time or even more.
The algorithm started rolling out on April 21st, but as per Google it will take a few days to roll out completely and globally.
This algorithm is about whether your website is mobile-friendly or not. The algorithm doesn’t measure the degree or how mobile-friendly your web pages are.
The Significance of Mobile-geddon
As per Google, the new mobile-friendly algorithm change will have much more impact on mobile devices’ search rankings, than what Penguin or Panda did, when they were launched. Around 40% of the websites on the internet are expected to get affected, which is really huge!
Checking whether your website is mobile-friendly
To ensure that your website is mobile-friendly and meets the criteria set out by Google, use the Google’s Mobile Friendly Check Tool.
Through this tool you will be able to ascertain whether your website complies with Google’s criteria. You just need to type in the URL of your website and within a few minutes you will get a “Yes” or a “No”. If your site fails, Google will outline all the things you need to fix to make it compliant with the algorithm change.
Looking at Analytics and checking on Google
Once your website passes the mobile-friendliness test, search yourself from a mobile device through Google. Check the listing/appearance; if you see “mobile-friendly” next to the Meta description, you have succeeded!
Refer to the analytics regularly to see the impact of this change in the traffic coming from search engines through the mobile devices.
What if your website isn’t mobile-friendly
Whether you are a small business or an enterprise, your rankings will suffer in Mobile Device Search Results after Mobile-geddon, if your site isn’t mobile compliant. If you really care for your rankings, you will have to make your website responsive to survive the competition.
Mobile-geddon can be a huge thing for some businesses while for some it might be just another update. If you think your business will be affected by the ranking on Mobile Device Search Results, this is the time to take action! Follow Google’s recommendations and get a mobile-friendly responsive website built!
Semaphore Software is a leading Web Design & Development Company, with an extensive experience in Responsive Web Development. Our innovative designers will provide end-to-end consulting services and assist you in making your websites mobile-friendly.
Get in touch with us through info@semaphore-software.com for an in-depth analysis of your websites and webstore.