20 Apr
Above: The Contemporary Photography website is optomised to give viewers on mobile phones and tablets a good experience.
Google is to start penalising websites that are not ‘mobile friendly’, while promoting those sites that are.
Google is updating its search algorithms to favour websites that work well on mobile devices.
Sections of sites owned by the European Union, the BBC and Wikipedia currently fail the search giant’s Mobile Friendly Test developer tool.
“Mobile friendliness” will affect how prominently websites appear in Google search results pages from 21 April.
Criteria includes text size, the amount of space between links and whether the content fits across a mobile screen.
A Google representative said mobile friendliness was “one of many” factors used by the search engine to rank results, but in a blog post the company said it would have “a significant impact” on search results.
“As people increasingly search on their mobile devices, we want to make sure they can find content that’s not only relevant and timely, but also easy to read and interact with on smaller mobile screens,” the representative said.
Google is also offering developer tools for making websites compliant with the mobile-friendly guidelines.
The BBC News website carried the story here: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32380223
To see how any website will fare with Google use the checker – https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
RTE News on the story
Google will today update its search algorithm so that it will penalise websites that do not optimise viewing on smartphones and tablets.
Originally announced in February, Google says the move is to adapt to the increasing number of people using mobile devices in order to search online, and the change will affect all searches done globally using Google on a smartphone or tablet.
Those sites that are not considered “mobile-friendly” by Google’s new system will drop down search results.
A Google spokesman said: “When it comes to search on mobile devices, users should get the most relevant and timely results, no matter if the information lives on mobile-friendly web pages or apps. As more people use mobile devices to access the internet, our algorithms have to adapt to these usage patterns.
“Starting April 21, 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.”
“Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”
To help prepare websites for the change, Google has been offering resources that enable webmasters to test their mobile sites since the announcement was first made in February.
However, some major sites are yet to comply with the changes is about to introduce, meaning they are at risk of dropping down Google’s search result pages, and see their web traffic fall.
Some market analysts are predicting that this year will be the first time that mobile searches surpass those on desktop, with more traffic coming from smartphone and tablets.
Somo’s Noreen McCaffrey said: “This move further highlights the need to focus on what users experience when searching for your company on-the-go.
“While some brands think apps alone are enough to tick the ‘mobile’ box in terms of best mobile user experience, Google doesn’t. As a result, these companies are about to see their mobile traffic declining.”
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