What has Google said?
"Starting April 21st 2015, we will be expanding 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."
Why is Google making the change?
Love Google, or hate it, the search engine giant repeatedly states that it wants users to have a fantastic online experience. Hence, the update to Google’s algorithm places greater emphasis on users navigating easily on a mobile devices. Why? Because Internet use from mobile devices has been rising sharply year on year.
We know that the mobile web is growing, if not exponentially, then certainly rapidly. In light of that fact, Google’s decision seems fair and rational.
What’s the worst that could happen?
Any website that is deemed as not responsive will plummet in their rankings. Does this mean that you have to make your website responsive? No, you don’t, and Google doesn’t have to rank you... Google is not the Internet, but let’s face it, failing to rank well on Google is not a great way to run a successful website.
There are some obvious new restrictions, and some that aren’t so obvious: you cannot, for example, use software that isn’t commonly found on mobile devices, such as Adobe Flash, you cannot display text that can’t be read without being zoomed, you cannot force users to scroll horizontally & you need to ensure there’s adequate space between links.
What should you do?
The good news is, finding out whether to meet Google’s definition of mobile-friendly is easy.
Google have provided a useful tool that will check the responsiveness of your website in seconds:
If the site is responsive, Google gives you the thumbs up. If not it will tell you why not.
How bad is it going to be?
Some people will notice no change, some will see their sites drop out of the rankings altogether.
And the impact on rankings will naturally depend on just how much mobile traffic you receive.
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