Google Mobile Update

Starting April 21, 2015, the Google Mobile Update will affect “mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results,” according to the Google announcement.

How will the Google Mobile Update affect your site?

If your site is not completely mobile friendly you could lose rank starting April 21, 2015 on mobile searches. Google has also been clear that the “Mobile-Friendliness” test is a true or false answer. There is no 50% mobile friendly or 70% mobile friendly, the page is or is not mobile friendly.

Will this change affect my desktop site?

When asked if the change will effect desktop site searches during a panel discussion at SMX Munich, Zineb Ait Bahajii, from Google said it would not. But with the growing influence of mobile users I would not be surprised if this changed in time.  At this point, over 50% of internet traffic comes from mobile devices.  In addition, by 2021, over 50% will come from smart phones alone.

What is the next steps?

First, test your site pages using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test here.  If your site passes, keep improving the mobile experience.  However, if your site is not “Mobile-Friendly”, you need to update your site designs.

There are several design approaches to consider.  Adaptive design has separate interfaces for mobile and desktop devices.  This can be a good approach if you want to implement different designs for mobile and desktop.  Responsive design has become the most popular approach.  Also, a ‘responsive’ design is a single design that adjusts to the size of the device its being displayed on.  A third approach is AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages).  AMP provides a separate, simplified design for fast loads times on mobile devices.  Depending on your budget and business goals, you’ll want to consider the advantages of each option.  Finally, contact us to discuss your options.

Find Google’s announcement here.