Google Mobile Friendly Update

A Complete Guide to Google’s Mobile Friendly Update

Looking for a complete guide to Google's mobile-friendly update? Look no further! This guide covers everything you need to know about the update, including what it is, how it will affect your website, and what you can do to prepare for it. Get started today and make sure your website is ready for the mobile-friendly future!
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Google recently launched an upgrade for its mobile search algorithm on April 21, 2015, which generated a lot of excitement and media exposure. Despite Google openly alerting website owners about an imminent upgrade, the changes were nicknamed “Mobilegeddon,” a label that prompted confusion and worries among some businesses who read the report. Although many site owners concentrated on the first effects of the launch and subsequent changes to mobile rankings, the structure of the algorithm upgrade has more consequences for the future of your company and the digital landscape. Let’s talk about how Google’s upgrade affects your company’s digital strategy and how to adapt to a mobile-friendly search scenario.

Google developed the mobile-friendly upgrade to enhance the customer experience for users including smartphones, tablets, and phablets. searching on mobile devices is becoming increasingly common. According to recent polls, Internet users engage on their mobile devices for about 70% of their Online research to get information, make purchases, or find their way around. The rising sales of mobile devices indicate a particular young generation relying solely on smartphones.

In addition, a lot of websites and programs are not optimized for mobile devices and their characteristics and smaller screens. This upgrade concentrated on smaller screens, different kinds of operating systems, and fewer hardware resources, which are related to diverse situations. When surfing the Internet on a desktop PC or laptop, several functionalities are present which might not support user displays on mobile devices. In light of this, Google thinks that mobile search results should also change. That is precisely what Google did when it updated its algorithm to be mobile-friendly as websites and apps designed for mobile devices appear higher in search results.

1. What is the background behind Google’s mobile friendly update?

The implementation of this mobile-friendly upgrade, which was planned in February, started on April 21, 2015. In the United States, cellular Internet usage began to overtake desktop Internet usage in the middle of 2014, in what has been dubbed “the largest change since the Internet began.” Google must modify its mobile search algorithm to take this phenomenon into account as more people are using mobile devices like smartphones to interact with content online.

Google has given preference to websites that provide excellent user experiences for visitors using mobile devices as part of its commitment to showing the best possible results to its consumers on mobile devices. These user experiences are characterized by the existence of features like:

  • Text that is simple to read
  • Navigation optimized for mobile (no pinching or zooming to complete simple tasks).

One may wonder why is Google so concerned with how users interact with their web browser. mostly because sponsored advertisements continue to make up the majority of their revenue. For people to keep visiting them and supporting them, they want to deliver the finest experience they can.

2. What is the reason behind launching Mobilegeddon?

Google believed that while searching on a smartphone, all consumers should obtain quick, useful results. As a consequence, mobile friendliness remained a ranking criterion in search results pages, and Mobilegeddon was bound to influence every business no matter the industry.

The primary objective of Google is to continuously enhance the user experience, match it with trends in consumer behaviours, and expand on its success. The Mobilegeddon Update was seen as more than just an algorithm and more of a societal change in reaction to the growing usage of mobile devices.

3. How has mobile search changed recently, and how will these changes affect my business?

The Update for Mobile explained how a change in Google’s algorithm will give mobile-friendly content a higher prominence in mobile search results. Pages that are exclusively built and developed for large displays may experience a sharp decline in their organic traffic from mobile search results. Searches on tablets or desktops won’t be affected by this upgrade.

So, how does the current state of mobile technology look? Even though it’s still early (Google has stated that it might take weeks to finish the whole upgrade), experts have observed witnessing some big profits and losses in cellular search visibility for top sites, whereas other site owners have only experienced minimal changes.

4. What Impact Will Mobilegeddon Have on PPC Ads and Local Search Results?

The number of search results impacted by Mobilegeddon is restricted to the “Blue 10” results, or the first ten ‘normal’-appearing’ results that Google shows on each SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Google advertisements (including CPC ads) and Local Listings, which show up in some SERPS distinct from the Blue 10 and are not impacted by Mobilegeddon, do not presently need to be fully optimized for mobile searches to fulfil the new algorithm (it is usually best to practice to include a caution in these matters as Google may and have been known to modify how their algorithms function with little or no warning).

5. How Great is Mobilegeddon?

Although there was a lot of media attention given to Mobilegeddon, it turned out to be less catastrophic than many online doom-merchants had enthusiastically claimed after some time had passed.  However, given all the hype leading up to it, the arrival of Mobilegeddon has been a little lacklustre.

Zineb Ait Bahajji, a Google employee, asserted that Google’s upcoming mobile algorithm update will be “larger than Panda or Google”.  In this perspective, the Panda and Penguin algorithm upgrades by Google had an impact on about 12 and 4% of search results, respectively. An entire week after Google’s Mobile Algorithm Update went live, a survey by Search Engine Roundtable found that 70% of webmasters had not observed any differences.

According to Google, the introduction of “Mobilegeddon” resulted in a roughly 5% increase in the number of mobile-friendly websites as webmasters rushed to make sure their web pages were compliant and avoid the inevitable penalty. Google has added that the search query’s purpose is still a very significant signal, so even if a website has excellent content but is not mobile-friendly, it may still score well if it is well-suited to the query.

6. Did Anyone Experience Penalties Due to Mobilegeddon?

In the wake of Mobilegeddon, the majority of webmasters didn’t observe any significant changes to their SERPs, however, quite a few prominent competitors did find themselves negatively impacted by the mobile algorithm adjustment. Among them were:

  • Reddit
  • NBC Sports
  • Vogue
  • SongLyrics.com
  • Bloomberg

7. How to determine if your website is optimized for Google mobile searches?

Thanks to Google, webmasters can now quickly and easily determine whether their websites are adequately optimized for mobile searches. A straightforward tool has been introduced to their Webmaster tools that enable users to quickly paste the URL of the website they wish to verify and press Enter. Within a few seconds, Google will have evaluated the website in issue in its entirety and will let customers know whether or not it meets their criteria for mobile friendliness. This new Google tool is much more helpful because it will let you know what modifications need to be done to your website if it fails the “mobile friendly” test.

Once these modifications have been made, your responsibility as the webmaster is to ensure that Google is notified and to submit the page again. Pages that have been resubmitted are typically “restored” in 72 hours. You will probably need to submit many times because the Google Mobile Algorithm Update only affects individual pages, not entire websites.

8. How should I prioritize my efforts to build a more mobile-friendly site?

You may concentrate on modifying high-priority sites first, such as high-performing landing pages, because Google’s upgrade works on a page-by-page basis. You don’t want to drop ranks for pages that have traditionally attracted visitors from organic traffic.

However, it is advisable to avoid handpicking which pages on your website will be optimized for mobile. It might be confusing or annoying for mobile visitors to navigate a website and find certain pages that are mobile-friendly while other sections are not. Your site will also appear amateurish if its user experience and appearance are mismatched.

Review Your Site’s Data

  • Explore your website statistics to see how well your site is performing based on how current mobile visitors are using it. Then, start considering how and when a complete website revamp would be suitable.
  • Organize your activities altogether into mobile traffic categories. Although most website monitoring systems should offer this capability, Google Analytics is what designers utilize. Before examining which pages receive the most traffic from organic search, think about what proportion of your total traffic originates from mobile devices. If you see a sizable quantity of traffic at this point, you should go further and look at user behaviour originating from mobile.
  • Examine the mobile traffic’s behaviour analytics. You should assess measures like bounce rate, duration on the page, and pages per session that show how valuable and approachable visitors find your information. Comparing engagement metrics for direct, organic, and referral visitors requires looking at each of them per media. Another important measure to consider is page speed, particularly if your company has a global presence. Keep in mind that location-based factors might affect connection speeds, and unlimited data plans are not always the standard.
  • Look for trends among well-known terms. You may still reasonably comprehend the top-notch keyword rankings you want to maintain or enhance, especially if branded phrases contribute significantly to the organic traffic that comes to your website. To determine how the latest change has affected your online visibility, review Google Webmaster Tools, your top landing pages from organic traffic sources, and known keywords mentioned in Google Analytics. Then, compare session trends for the time since April 21st to the week prior.
  • Review the best pages from organic sources by hand. In order to determine the sites that users consider significant, it is crucial to look at landing pages as well as users’ navigation patterns. Your main list of pages that need to be assessed for mobile friendliness should consist of this group of pages. To estimate the amount of money you’ll need to spend on your website redesign, take a critical look at them and put them through the Google Mobile Friendly test.

9. Best Practices for Minimizing Mobilegeddon Penalties:

  • Simple Headlines
  • Quick and easy Buttons
  • Keep your sentences brief.
  • Clearly visible call to action
  • a concise meta description
  • Rich Schema Tags
  • Adaptive Design

10. Mobile Site Vs Responsive Website Design:

Mobile Site Pros:

  • Can be tailored particularly for users of mobile devices.
  • Often the most responsive version of a website.
  • Easier and less expensive to design.

Mobile Site Cons:

  • Repeated maintenance
  • more expenses while changing the content of several websites
  • To operate with the next web browsers, it might need to be rewritten.

Responsive Website Design Pros:

  • Immensely adaptable; one responsive website functions across all devices
  • Google advises using this setup.
  • Typically a greater return on investment, as the majority of responsive sites won’t require much upkeep in the future.

Responsive Website Design Cons:

  • Higher costly initial outlay.
  • Not as effective on mobile devices as a site that is intended for smartphones.

End Note

The Google Mobilegeddon Update only had an impact on search engine results on mobile devices, it adapted to individual pages rather than whole websites, and it had an international influence on all results regardless of language. The actual transition was simple since there was no middle ground or ranking system; a website was either deemed to be mobile-friendly or it wasn’t.

Google seldom provides a thorough justification for an update. However, in all fairness, the ranking was not as affected as predicted but instead served as a motivation for those adhering to Google’s adjustments, the Mobilegeddon Update did allow webmasters to make the required modifications that over time have led to a better user experience for everyone when browsing from a mobile device. Similar results were seen with the second update in 2016 as more and more users adjusted to the change. This upgrade was a success for Google, the modified websites, and mobile device users alike.

The Mobilegeddon algorithm update demonstrated that Google is capable of bringing about innovation that goes beyond traffic and rankings and can encourage individuals to adapt to these changes by developing their websites appropriately without creating widespread misunderstanding. Given that more than 50% of all global search inquiries come from mobile devices, mobile-friendly and adaptable websites are now considered essential ranking indicators. Therefore, it seems that Google made significant advancements with the upgrade and set the stage for future success.

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Digital Scholar

Digital Scholar is a premier agency-styled digital marketing institute in India. Which offers an online digital marketing course and a free digital marketing course worldwide to elevate their digital skills and become industry experts. Digital Scholar is headed by Sorav Jain and co-founder Rishi Jain, who are pioneers in the field of digital marketing. Digital Scholar’s blogs touch upon numerous aspects of digital marketing and help you get intensive ideas of different domains of digital marketing.

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