GOOGLE MOBILE FRIENDLY UPDATE IS COMING ON APRIL 21ST

Google makes changes to its search algorithm on a regular basis, so the fact that they are making two big changes to their search algorithm is not surprising. However, in most cases Google doesn’t bother to announce prior to making the changes, so it is surprising that they gave prior notice before rolling out the new updates.

Mobilegeddon Update

One of the major changes is that Google will use mobile friendliness update calledMobilegeddon as a determining factor for a website’s ranking in the mobile version of Google search. In Google’s own words, this change in algorithm will have quite significant impact in mobile search results worldwide irrespective of language.Google will be rolling out this update (Mobilegeddon) on April 21st 2015. Google actually given websites a few months time, So that webmasters do prepare and update their sites so they can become more mobile-friendly. Considering that more and more people are accessing internet through mobile, the measures Google is taking, are quite understandable.Any webmaster, who wants to make their website more mobile friendly so as to measure up to the standard that Google is clearly expecting, should use Google’s mobile friendly testing tool and mobile usability reports to find out what needs to be improved with their website.The following screenshot is taken from the mobile friendly test result for CNN.com – showing as mobile-friendly. Beside this tool, Google also provided a beginner to expert level guide onMobile SEO best practices - to help webmasters to optimize the mobiles websites.

Website Is Not Mobile Friendly, Then What?The following screenshot is a non-mobile friendly result shown for a site which is actually not a responsive design nor dynamically served. But there is nothing to worry because Google also provided a detailed guide for self designed, third party developer designed and CMS(content management system) based sites such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Etc. to turn non-mobile friendly websites into mobile-friendly. Just follow through the guide/resources provided in the mobile-friendly test result page.

Google App Indexing Update

Another change that Google said will be effective immediately is that the apps which are indexed by Google’s App Indexing will get higher ranking in the mobile search. But this feature will only work for users who have signed in and have the app already installed on their handheld device.These two changes in algorithm will have heavy impact on traffic and many websites are likely to lose traffic due to the new ranking system, so if you own a website and it is not mobile friendly or is low on mobile friendliness score then you should work on rectifying the situation as soon as possible.