Google’s new mobile-friendly algorithm, which has been dubbed the “Mobilegeddon,” is live on web from April 21. The Mobilegeddon demotes sites that are deemed not mobile-friendly in searches performed on mobile devices. Google’s search engine algorithm updates are normally salient and often revealed shortly after their respective implementations. This update was relatively different in the sense that it effectively allowed websites to prepare for the upcoming update, making sure that many advertisers and content creators were not caught off guard once it went live.
To quote Google’s Webmaster blog: “Starting April 21, we expand our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide, and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant and high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”
How to deal with the new change, tips for users and website owners.
First, make sure that your site can be easily read on mobile devices. A good tool to determine this is your everyday smartphone. The mobile-friendly algorithm only pertains to web searches performed on smartphones. Searches from feature phones and tablets are not affected by the new update. To judge whether your site is mobile friendly, first check if the text is large enough to be read on a smartphone’s screen. Ensure that you don’t have to pinch and zoom to view the website’s content. Make sure your site does not use Flash video since it is unplayable on mobile devices. Secondly, a mobile-friendly website should load quickly. This is because users frequently use slower 3G and 4G networks to browse the web from their smartphones. Mobile hardware also tends to be less powerful than today’s desktop computer hardware. The Google Page Speed Insights tool can be used to analyse your website’s loading speed on mobile devices, says Krishna Kumar, CEO of GreenPepper Digital.
And in addition to Google’s tools, several third-party tools are available to help you evaluate whether your site is mobile-friendly. Mobiletest.me is a tool that shows you how a website looks on different mobile devices. Mobiletest.me supplies emulators that mimic various devices on the Android, iOS and Windows Phone platforms. Website owners who do not own a wide variety of smartphones will find this tool useful.
Good thing for small businesses who are agile – Small businesses tend to be far more flexible with their tech teams able to apply changes far quicker and easier than larger enterprises due to a less complicated infrastructure, also making it easier to roll out new software and processes, says Krishna Kumar, CEO of GreenPepper Digital, a digital marketing company in Kochi.
Google’s new update has thrown panic into the markets abroad as as we get calls from clients to convert the ordinary website into mobile friendly websites in short notice. We can do it in 7 days. This is a great opportunity for agile companies to stay ahead in Google search results. Any website built before 2012 seem to be mobile unfriendly.