As of this month, Google has altered its algorithms rolling out the mobile-friendly update to boost the rankings of mobile-friendly pages on the mobile search results.
Google has made it possible for those searching on mobile to easily find the highest-quality and relevant results that integrate what mobile responsive sites should have, including readable text content that doesn’t require much zooming, the tap targets have the appropriate spacing, and the page avoids any horizontal scrolling and unplayable content.
The above screenshots depict a mobile responsive website on a mobile device compared with a non responsive site that have not been zoomed into.
The mobile site is the much preferable option for those who are on the go and will namely be searching on their mobile devices, i.e businessmen and women as the content is easily read and accessible promoting much faster business results.
Google’s update, as of 21st April, only boosts the mobile search rankings for the pages that are relevant and usable on any mobile device.
Essentially, it affects search rankings only on mobile devices, as well as the search results in all languages globally and will apply to an individual page, rather than an entire website.
The update does not affect the existing means of ranking search results through signals.
Though the mobile-friendly change is crucial, the determination of a search query will contribute to that signal and is very strong thus if a page contains high quality content yet isn’t mobile-friendly, it could still potentially rank high if it has great content appropriate for the query.
The algorithm will scan each page on the site and will check for load times, any responsive elements of design on your website and mobile best practice.
The main thing to bear in mind when making a website mobile-responsive is the content – the text size must be easily read and fit into the screen without the necessity of having to scroll or zoom in.
If you would like to check if your website is mobile-friendly, there is a tool that enables you to examine whether you individual site pages are mobile-friendly, alternatively you can check the status of your entire site through the mobile usability report in webmaster tools.
There may be a notable decrease in mobile traffic from Google Search depending on whether your site pages aren’t mobile friendly. However, if a site is mobile friendly, Google will automatically re-process your pages!
You can find out more in their own blog regarding the announcement http://googlewebmastercentral.
For further information about how we can help you make your current website responsive, please click here!
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