What is mobilegeddon and how does it affect your website and your business? Mobilegeddon is the recent update to Google’s search algorithm that came into effect on the 21st April 2015. This new algorithm penalises websites that are not mobile -friendly and these non mobile-friendly websites are ranked lower on mobile Google search results.
Mobilegeddon doesn’t directly effect your website on desktop searches but it is essential that your website ranks highly on mobile search results to avoid loosing business. According to recent announcement from Google Adwords: “more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan.” Click-through rates and site popularity also factor into search results. If your website is not mobile-friendly and fails to gain mobile traffic, not only could the results for your ranking in desktop search drop dramatically, but you will loose out on business from customers who click through and buy products and services from their mobile phones.
People today are more and more inclined to search and purchase on their mobiles and it is important to optisimise your website for this. If you are unsure whether your website is mobile friendly or not, there is a ‘Google Mobile Friendly Test’ tool that you can use to test your website. You can access this from the link below:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
We at Boom22 ran our website through this test and got a positive result. If your website is mobile friendly, the result will look like this:
From the screen shot above you can also see how Googlebot “sees” our website. Boom22 uses 3 resources, which are blocked by robots.txt – but this is nothing to worry about!
If your website fails the test it will look something like this:
From the screen shot above you can see that Google will give you reasons as to why your website is not mobile-friendly (such as the text is too small, links are too close together), how Googlebot “sees” your website and suggestions on how to make your page mobile friendly.
If your website fails the mobile- friendly test, you should strongly consider optimising your website. This will ensure you’re not loosing out on business and avoid getting penalised by Google’s new algorithm. Once you have decided to make your website mobile-friendly, you’re next step is to choose your mobile opitmisation approach. Responsive design, dynamic serving or creating a separate mobile website are all ways you can go about optimising your website and all three ways pass the Google mobile- friendly test. However, we at Boom22 recommend that you use Responsive Design. Responsive Design creates just one copy of your website and it easily adapts onto whatever device you are using. Essentially the website will respond to the screen size be it desktop, ipad or mobile. Users get the same experience of your website no matter what device they are using. This also makes it easier for Googlebot when crawling your site – it only has one place to crawl through rather than multiple sites.
This new Google algorithm is something to embrace, not fear. We believe it is a great opportunity for businesses to recognise whether their websites are responsive to mobile and if not then make the changes and avoid loosing out on business. The use of mobile phones over desktop is getting more and more popular and it is important for businesses to keep up with these changes.
If you have any problems or need help optimising your website, don’t hesitate to contact us. We at Boom22 are always glad to help!
The post Mobilegeddon appeared first on Boom 22 - Web Site Developer iPhone Android App Developer SEO Search engine optimisation providers Sandyford, Blackrock, Dublin, Ireland.