Last night, Google announced on Twitter that its second mobile friendly update first announced in March have now been fully rolled out:
The First Mobile Friendly Update
The first mobile friendly algorithm update came in April of 2015 and was implemented to deliver more relevant, high quality search results for users on mobile devices.
To deliver these results, Google made the mobile friendliness of any site a ranking factor. This implementation was the start of what is known as Mobilegeddon.
The update favoured sites that were faster and more responsive to mobile users and as result ranked them higher.
Mobile Friendly Update Part Two
One year later and we now have the implementation of the next phase of Mobilegeddon, but what does this mean to websites and their mobile search results?
Here is what the Google Webmasters say:
“…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.”
We are assured that if your site is already mobile friendly that you won’t be impacted by this update.
Not Mobile Friendly?
Google is placing more and more importance on a mobile friendly website. You can not afford to ignore this and should make the shift to a more responsive web design and AMP.
The first thing to do is to run a check to find out what Google thinks of your site. This can be done using the Mobile Friendly Test, running your URL through this tool will let you know where you stand.
If the result is that your site is NOT mobile friendly then it is time to take action. There are lots of resources available to help you make your website mobile friendly, this post lists them for you.
Independent SEO Audit
For a more in depth view of your website an independent SEO audit will highlight what is stopping your site from ranking better not only for mobile results but for all traffic to your website.
If users get a better experience on mobile devices they will spend much more time there and will be more likely to buy.
Can your business afford NOT to be mobile friendly?
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2 Responses
Re: the comment on the first update: “The update favoured sites that were faster and more responsive to mobile users and as result ranked them higher.”
Myself and many other commentators saw no real evidence of this. If “mobile friendly” really did go in to the algorithm last year (2016) it seems to have only a very weak effect so far..
We saw some impact on poor quality sites, which I guess was the entire point.
More importantly, a better mobile experience means more leads or sales from users on mobile devices – if there was a reason to make sure a website is responsive and mobile friendly, that’s a far more important one than just rankings 🙂