The winds are howling and the thunders are roaring, because there has been raining Mobilegeddon outside!
After months of prior signals to companies, alerting them to make their website mobile user friendly, Google has finally let loose its newest search algorithm.
The latest algorithm in Google’s already brimming inventory – which has now touched the 200th mark – is created to improve mobile-friendly websites ranking on its global mobile search and pound those that tend to make mobile users infuriated due to tiny texts, horizontal scrolls, ad banners and whatnot.
If you’re also unaware of mobile-friendly websites and its significance for your business, you’d better read on or face the consequences.
What’s a Mobile-Friendly Website?
Mobile-friendly, aka responsive, websites are those that readjust and fit to screen’s of all sizes- be it smartphones or tablets. The fonts get enlarged and spread clearly on the screen, the menu becomes more clear and distinct, and the horizontal scroll is disappeared. This allows users to surf the web more easily, and without the need of any zooming or scrolling.
Why Is It Necessary?
According to Smart Insights report, nearly 80% of internet users prefer mobile internet surfing over Desktops. This has lead to a growing concern amongst the online community of having more mobile-friendly websites.
Although responsive websites have been amongst us since 2013, many companies still tend to ignore the importance of having one and lose many potential leads every day. In fact a recent study shows that in UAE only 8% of the websites are responsive while the rest are still non-mobile-friendly. This is a great blow to the UAE and other Middle-East countries as they are losing a major portion of quality traffic or potential leads.
Taking such considerations into account and to make sure that it lives by its philosophy, “You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer”, Google decided to have an algorithm that compel such companies to make mobile-user-friendly websites their priority if they want to rule the search rankings in their respective industries.
However, the best part about this update is that it is unlike its sister algorithms (Panda and Penguin) which are created to penalize the sites that don’t meet Google search criteria. On the contrary, Google mobile algorithm improves the search rankings of mobile-friendly websites, and ranking down the rest in the process.
To check whether your site is mobile-friendly or not, you may test it against Google’s mobile friendly test tool.