As mobile web browsing is steadily taking over conventional desktop browsing, it now accounts for 60% of the total online traffic. Undeniably, access to mobile internet has become as essential as being able to drive a car nowadays.
So, in this age of smartphones, how come Google could lag behind and not whirl its algorithm? After all, it’s Google that knows the best!
Thus, to this end, on April 21st, 2015, Google rolled out a new update with the name, “Google Mobile-Friendly Update.” This term was later dubbed as Mobilegeddon (a not-so-smart play on the words Mobile and Armageddon)
This Pigeon update provides mobile-friendly sites with a ranking boost in Google’s mobile Search Results. Also, it adversely affects the mobile rankings of the websites that aren’t Mobile Compliant.
If keeping up with mobile-friendliness of your business website wasn’t your thing until now, it’s high time you start thinking otherwise.
Here are some important facts about Google Mobile-Friendly Update that you should know. Give a quick gander below:
- This update puts Mobile Compatible websites at a higher rank, penalizing all those websites that aren’t mobile-friendly by demoting their rankings on its mobile search engine.
- Desktop search engine results remain unaffected by this update. And this goes for laptops and tablets too.
- A web page becomes eligible for the “mobile-friendly” status if it meets the following standards, as detected in real-time by Googlebot:
- Avoid software that isn’t popular on smartphones, such as Flash
- Use readable text without zooming
- Size content to the mobile screen, so there won’t be any need for horizontal scrolling or zooming.
- The links on the mobile version of your website should be far enough apart. This will help users click on the correct links via a touch interface easily.
How does it Work?
This Google Mobile-Friendly algorithm works on a page by page basis. For instance, if some of the webpages on your website are mobile-friendly, they will have a higher chance of getting ranked.
How Much Time does Google take to Acknowledge Changes?
Googlebot can take from a few to over 72 hours to reflect, index, or rank changes accordingly. However, it can also depend on the magnitude and frequency of the changes you brought in. For instance, some massive sites might even take more than a month.
Exceptions:
This Google algorithm is about whether your site is mobile-friendly or not. The algorithm doesn’t check how mobile-friendly your web pages are.
Moreover, Google stressed that this new update doesn’t exclude non-optimized pages. If a particular page has high-quality content for a specific search query, it can still be ranked quite high.
How to check if your website is Mobile-Friendly?
To make sure your website is mobile-friendly and meets the criteria set out by Google, use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Check Tool. Through this tool, you can determine whether your site complies with Google’s standards.
Wrap Up -Google Mobile-Friendly Update
Regardless of your size of the business, your rankings will suffer in Mobile Device Search Results after Mobilegeddon rollout, if your site isn’t mobile-friendly. If you really care for your SEO rankings, you will have to make your website responsive to withstand the competition. Mobilegeddon can be an essential thing for some businesses while for some, it might be just another Google update. If you think the ranking on Mobile Device Search Results is affecting your business, this is the time to take action!
