Google has finally implemented the second wave of the mobile-friendly ranking boost, also dubbed as “mobilegeddon”, having previously warned webmasters it would be increasing the signal.
This change will give an additional ranking boost to websites with mobile-friendly web designs within the mobile search results.
Google had previously given everyone notice back in March, stating it was planning to boost the mobile-friendly ranking signal in May – and Google has finally made good on that promise.
John Mueller, a Webmaster Trends Analysts at Google, announced that the aforementioned changes had been fully rolled out as of the 12th of May 2016.
FYI The mobile changes mentioned here are now fully rolled out. https://t.co/fTB3ia6LJ2
— John Mueller (@JohnMu) May 12, 2016
Additionally, John stated that the algorithm update had been “rolling out for a while now, but is now complete”.
The mobile-friendly algorithm works on a page-by-page basis – meaning it can take a while for Google to crawl each individual page, and so it took some time to completely roll out.
The impact of this update on your site could be slow because of this – but it’s worthwhile keeping an eye on your mobile organic search traffic in Google Analytics, to keep track of any changes. The new algorithm tweaks impact mobile search results pages globally.
This new change in the algorithm aims to “increase the effect of the ranking signal to help our users find even more pages that are relevant and mobile-friendly.”
As Google uses over 200 factors to determine the rankings of websites in the search results, it’s not clear cut how much difference this will truly make in terms of rankings.
But what is for certain, is that if you do all the right optimisations for your website, including having a mobile-friendly web design, then you’ll be sure to be climbing the rankings.
If your website is already mobile-friendly, then you have nothing to fear – as you will already benefit from better rankings in the mobile search results, and will not be impacted by this algorithm update.
However if you currently do not have a mobile web design, then there’s no time like the present to finally upgrade – as Google is certain to make mobile-friendliness an even more important ranking signal in the future. If you’re not sure if your website is mobile-friendly, check with Google’s mobile-friendly tool.
If you’re looking to make the most of the mobile-friendly ranking signal, and upgrade to a mobile web design, get in touch with the team here at Xanthos, who will be more than happy to discuss how we can help with the build and design of your mobile-friendly website.
