Google has been the search engine giant since the beginning of search engines. With the current impact on the market and popularity around the world we can say that Google isn’t coming down or getting intimidated by any other search engine on the web any time sooner. It would not be wrong to say that the top position as a search engine on the internet is due to the efforts Google puts in its work. Google is the fastest and yet the simplest looking search engine on the web. On most occasions, when you are talking about search engines results you are metaphorically talking about Google search results.
To keep up with the ever advancing technology, changing trends and changing user behaviors, Google has to update its online search policies frequently. The updates in its online search engine algorithms often set a new milestone every now and then. Google Panda is known as one of the biggest algorithmic update ever made by Google. This particular update affected almost every single website that was indexed by Google in its search results. This time it would be mobile friendly algorithm update that will startle all businesses around the world.
What’s The New Update
The new update in algorithms by Google is mainly focused on mobile friendliness. Time has been paving the way for mobile friendly websites for quite some years now. As soon as businesses around the world realized the popularity of mobile devices they started devising methods to deal with various screen sizes and make their websites according to these requirements. This gave rise to the concept of mobile friendliness. Mobile friendliness of a website is measure of how good a user’s experience is when he’s browsing and using a website on his mobile device.
The new algorithm will revolutionize the way search results come up. It is because most of the search results will be affected by how much a website is mobile friendly. Websites that are not mobile friendly will not show up on top or will struggle to show up on top. Websites that will have advantage in the search engine results will be those that are mobile friendly. Many of the businesses around the world already have mobile friendly websites but not all. Businesses that have been shunning from mobile devices will now have to work on creating one if they want to remain visible in search results.
The most mentionable thing here is the words used by an official from the Webmaster Trends team of Google. Zineb Ait Bahajji from Google is the one who said that the impact of this update on Google’s search results will be bigger than the effects of Google’s Panda and Penguin updates. These words are not to be taken lightly. While Google continues to make small changes in its algorithms but they are not given much attention because they don’t completely overhaul the algorithms used by the company to display its search results.
Google has also mentioned clearly that the update will affect the search engine results based on the applications being used by users on their mobile devices. Google will index certain applications and while showing search results to individuals the results will be greatly affected by the applications that the user will be signed in at the time of his search. This is a clear indication from the giant of search engine world to the website owners to go for a mobile friendly strategy as soon as they can. Those who already have mobile friendly websites can sit rest assured that they had already prepared for this in advance.
What Should Website Owners Do
The most important question in the heads of website owners is what they should do about it. The idea is simple – go for mobile friendly websites. There are various routes for webmasters to make their websites mobile friendly. They can either create standalone websites that are exclusively designed for mobile users or make their websites responsive. Responsive websites are the ones that change their size and still look extremely usable to users when they are viewed on different devices. If your website is not user friendly on a mobile device you might have to sacrifice the top position in search engine results.
Businesses that already have mobile friendly websites should take further steps to strengthen their position in the search ranking. As mentioned by Google officials, the companies should be working mobile applications too in order to have their impact on the search engine results of the users. Those handling the matters of the website should also start using the applications that can tell them where their websites are standing in terms of being mobile friendly. The more mobile friendly your website is the higher the chances of being in top search results.
The good thing is that Google has already provided you with the right tools to gauge the mobile friendliness of your website. Mobile Friendly Test is a tool that can be used by webmasters to see how friendly their websites are to mobile users. Mobile Friendly Test is more suitable for those who are handling the optimization of only a specific number of pages. Professionally done websites with several hundreds and thousands of pages should use the Mobile Usability Report. These tools can be relied greatly since Google itself has recommended their use to webmasters.
When Is The Roll Out Expected
The rollout of the new updated algorithm from Google is expected on April 21, 2015. Internet users, especially those using the mobile devices, will start noticing a few changes in their regular search results from this very day. Their search results will be focused more on websites that are more suitable for their mobile devices. In their search results they will also be seeing applications and other tools. Furthermore, the rollout is expected to affect the users of mobile devices across all platforms. You should be prepared for the changes even if you are an Apple’s iPhone user.
The online world has dubbed this new algorithm update from Google has MobileGeddon. Search engine optimization experts and other online marketing specialists are always supposed to be updated with such news. Those who don’t know about this update will be surprises or shocked to be precise after seeing their website traffic on April 21 and its later dates. The rollout is not to be taken lightly as predicted by some of the most known names in the online internet marketing world. It doesn’t matter how big of a giant you are in the world, your website will be affected greatly if it is not mobile friendly.
A Few Pointers For Webmasters
Webmasters should go ahead and start checking their website’s mobile friendliness factor with the help of above mentioned tools right now. The most important thing is that they should work on every page of the website. If there are some pages on your website that have not been optimized for mobile devices you might damage your website traffic statistics. There are monitoring tools available to check the optimization status of each page. Revisit your mobile friendly websites as much as you can on mobile devices. Is it looking fine? Is the text readable? Does your website show relevant content when used on a mobile device?
If you have been long waiting to launch an application for your customers, now is the right time. Your mobile application will be greatly affecting your searchability in the search results. In addition to that, Google will be giving special place to applications in the search results that will relevant to the queries performed by online users. Lastly, webmasters should also be working on things they regularly do such as speed of loading of the website and all of its pages. Mobile-only 404s should be avoided as much as possible. Irrelevant cross links should also be addressed.
