Companies suffer as Google’s “mobilegeddon” strikes web
Brands' online traffic is expected to suffer as “significant” changes to Google’s algorithm come into effect, bumping up mobile-friendly websites - as 'mobile-first' truly takes root.
Brands' online traffic is expected to suffer as “significant” changes to Google’s algorithm come into effect, bumping up mobile-friendly websites - as 'mobile-first' truly takes root.
Brands’ online traffic is expected to suffer from today (April 21) as “significant” changes to Google’s algorithm come into effect, bumping up mobile-friendly websites – as ‘mobile-first’ truly takes root.
The move marks the biggest shake-up to the search engine since Panda and Penguin. Google will boost sites that display well on mobile and downgrade those that don’t.
Goole judged sites according to quality and linking practices.
Nick Fettiplace, SEO expert at Jellyfish, warned: “Advertisers whose websites do not cater for mobile may start to see fluctuations in their organic performance as soon as April 21st, when the roll-out of the new algorithm begins.”
Google has built an online test for brands and publishers to check whether their sites qualify as mobile-friendly.
Major brands including Argos, Tesco, Aldi, Morrisons (and .rising) all pass, while Marks and Spencer failed.
According to Google, half of all searches globally come from mobile – yet many brands have failed to keep up with the shift in consumer behaviour.
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Great little article – and agree our business http://www.blurgroup.com is seeing an increase of mobile ‘needy’ companies…Things change so fast across the whole digital spectrum it is often difficult to keep up with everything. But this one is a ‘biggy’ so there should be no excuses really.
Very informative article! The changes will certainly have an affect in the Kenyan market due to the use rise in mobile use. Companies now have to realize the importance mobile-friendly sites. The increase of e-commerce sites will put this to a test.
Very interesting article, however I don’t know how huge the impact will be. Is Google really going to rank a site based on how it’s optimised as opposed to the content it contains? Surely if a website contains good content that is relevant to what the user has searched for (regardless of whether or not it’s mobile friendly) this shouldn’t pose an issue, else it would seem Google could well be “shooting themselves in the foot” for want of a better expression!
You’re absolutely right Sam Smette:
“The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal – so even if a page with high quality content is not mobile-friendly, it could still rank high if it has great content for the query,” Google said.
Businesses should beware companies with a vested interest in selling their seo, web design and/or development services making alarmist statements disguised as advice.
Rather they should check their analytics and consider the role/relative importance of search in a marketing plan aligned with commercial objectives.
Any business that relies on search (and by no means all do – there are other strategies) and has a growing or high proportion of traffic from mobile phones (the changes do not apply to searches on tablets) could consider:
creating mobile friendly landing pages (Google Search, and these changes, are about individual pages not entire sites)
creating separate mobile site (with cut down content and link to longer content on main site)
investing in a new responsive website (subject to age and effectiveness of existing site)
Not quite as catchy as “mobilegeddon” though eh?
That’s good to hear. I am subscribed to a few email newsletters and you’re right in that some of them are clearly trying to cause panic and scaremongering to those who are perhaps less knowledgeable. I recently looked back at our stats and gradually year on year, the visits from mobiles has slowly increased. I am currently redeveloping our companies website to a responsive template using Twitter’s responsive Bootstrap framework – which, whilst it’s largely based upon our previous site (in terms of layout and structure, as we found this to be very effective according to some feedback) it will be viewable on desktops, mobiles and tablets alike; thus it means the user experience is greater as users can access exactly the same content across all platforms. So therefore the latter option you mention is definitely worth the consideration in the long run. It all depends on what you intend to get out of it and whether it’s really necessary for you.