Google hasa made tweaks to its search engine algorithm to favor mobile-ready websites, two months after announcing the plan earlier this year. In a nutshell, sites that look good on smartphone screens are favored over those that do not factor in the more limited area of a phone.
Though Google updates its search engine algorithm frequently, this is considered by some experts to be its most significant change in years. Of course, failing to meet the mark doesn’t mean that websites will be taken out of Google’s ranking; ultimately, mobile-friendliness is just one of over 200 different “signals” that Google uses to rank its search results.
Still, as mobile-friendly websites expected to rank higher on Google search results, those that are not optimized for mobile devices can expect to suffer. Among others, mobile-friendly criteria includes things like how well content fits in the mobile screen, text size (do users have to manually zoom in?), and the space between links. The use of Flash is definitely a no-no, given that it doesn’t run across well (or at all) across a broad swathe of mobile devices.
For now, it is important for CMOs to understand that the algorithm will scan each page on a site individually, and is applied on a page-by-page basis. This means that new pages will start to benefit as they are updated to be mobile friendly, which is an important consideration for organizations with a large number of web pages that may take time to change.
In the meantime, marketers can check whether a website is considered mobile friendly by checking out the free service from Google here. In addition, Google has also released a guide for making a website more mobile friendly.