Google To Penalise Non Mobile Friendly Sites By April 21st.

Google announced a few weeks ago that they will enforce a new search algorithm on April 21.

The new algorithm relates to the mobile friendliness or compatibility of a site on mobile devices meaning that mobile search users will only see search engine results that provide a good user experience on mobile devices. The new change is set to have a huge impact on mobile search engine results globally.

For years Google has used mobile usability as a subtle ranking signal but the search engine results for desktop and mobile remained quite similar, with non mobile friendly sites still ranking highly on mobile. In November 2014 Google implemented a mobile friendly tag on sites it deemed to be mobile friendly as per the example below.

The mobile friendly label was applied to sites and web pages with the following criteria:

  • Website doesn’t use software and plug ins that are no common on mobile devices such as flash files
  • Text is legible on mobile devices without zooming
  • The content is responsive/adapts to a mobile screen so that users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom
  • Links are distinguishable and spaced that users can easily click on them

It is important to note that Google analyses each web page independently, that it is not a site test but an individual webpage test.

Mobilegeddon

The new search engine algorithm is dubbed ‘mobilegeddon’ by many marketers. For B2B organisations a common response to a mobile responsive website is that customers access the site on desktops or laptops and will show a Google Analytics report to prove the breakdown of traffic is a small percentage of the total traffic to desktop.

But what happens when they are trying to find your offices or have met a colleague in the corridor and would like to show them your company website but can’t remember the name of your organisation and are using search words they associated with you in Google. If you don’t have a mobile friendly site after April 21st chances are you won’t appear in mobile search engine results and that could mean business lost.

While the vast majority of B2B visits will still be on desktop you just simply can’t ignore making your website mobile responsive or else your search traffic will suffer.

Use this tool to find out if your site is mobile friendly https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

If you would like to discuss a mobile website solution for your business, drop me an email [email protected] or ring us in the office on 091 739450.

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