So, the 21st April has come and gone and “Mobilegeddon” has been unleashed on the digital world.
A lot has been written about this update to the Google search algorithm accompanied by a lot of hype. In truth, it’s a natural extension of Google search that reflects and aligns to our mobile search behaviour.
What is it?
From the source: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/04/faqs-april-21st-mobile-friendly.html
“For background, in February, we announced that the mobile-friendly update will boost the rankings of mobile-friendly pages – pages that are legible and usable on mobile devices – in mobile search results worldwide. Conversely, pages designed for only large screens may see a significant decrease in rankings in mobile search results.”
Context
The update only affects searches done on mobile phones. So if most of your traffic comes from desktop users or tablets then do some research before you invest time and money into updating your site. Bear in mind though that by not investing in updating your site you could create a “self-fulfilling prophecy” as Google ships you only desktop users. Not a good place to be.
If you missed the deadline of 21st April, don’t stress too much as Google rates mobile friendliness on a per page basis. Each time it re-crawls / indexes your page it will re-asses the rating. You can make this easier for Google by having a site map and using Google Webmaster Tools to “fetch” pages you have fixed.
Helpful Links
To test your site and any specific pages in your site simply visit:https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
To read more about this Google update and to scan through the list of official FAQs have a look at:http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/04/faqs-april-21st-mobile-friendly.html
Written by Alan Haarhoff
Business Development Manager
