Google rolled out “Mobilegeddon”, a new mobile-friendly algorithm on 21st April, 2015. With Mobilegeddon, Google intends to provide boost to websites that look good on smartphones. This tweak in algorithm is expected to make significant impact on rankings of websites in smartphone search results. With this update Google has set new standards and it will penalize websites that do not follow these standards. Reports of algorithm update were doing rounds since February and it was officially made on April 21. Google will be rolling out the update over course of the week.
As per the research conducted by Merkle | RKG at beginning of April, around 25 percent of top retailers and 46 percent of Fortune 500 companies did not have mobile-friendly websites. This algorithm update may mean drop in traffic and loss of revenue for these websites. Not just large companies, this algorithm change has caused upheaval among small and medium size businesses. Google is also providing a tool for businesses to check whether their website is mobile-friendly or not. The tool can be accessed at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
Why Mobilegeddon?
Mobilegeddon has put a severe pressure on businesses and they are scrambling to reconfigure their websites to pass the mobile friendly test. Most business owners are asking the question that why Google has made this major update in its algorithm. Users, today, are preferring mobile devices over desktops/laptops as mobile devices have become an integral part of their daily activities. When any user accesses desktop website on mobile, the experience is quite frustrating. This update made by Google acknowledges the new trend and is an attempt to keep up with changing user preferences. There has been significant increase in users utilizing mobile devices to access Internet. So, it has become very important that websites as well as search algorithm adapt to the new usage patterns.
How Mobilegeddon will affect businesses?
Mobile has become an important platform for marketing! Online retailers will directly be affected by this update as it could result in drop in search engine rankings. Not just online retailers, even small and local businesses are using mobiles to reach prospective customers. So businesses cannot ignore this update. In the coming years, mobile will become even more strategic platform for businesses.
Google had warned website owners of the upcoming changes in advance. It had also provided tips on how to prepare their website. Yet, this update has gathered strong reactions from the industry. Though Mobilegeddon is not the end of the world for most websites, its overall impact on mobile search rankings can only be analyzed after few weeks.
