Google’s move impacts small businesses.
By Dileep Thekkethil
Going by an earlier statement of the search giant Google, Tuesday could be a nightmarish day for small business owners across the world who has failed to upgrade their websites to “mobile friendly”.
Two months back, Google announced that the company would be releasing its latest algorithm update for mobile friendly websites on April 21st and gave an ultimatum for small business owners to make the move within the two months’ time or prepare to get hit hard by the update, which would result in losing clicks due to downgrading of the site in mobile search ranking.
The new algorithm update, which is currently rolling out in phases, will give a boost for websites that adjust to the small screens of smartphones and like always, some websites will be in the losing end and some others will benefit.
Here is a check list of things that you should know about Google’s new mobile friendly update, which by now has been infamously labelled as “Mobilegeddon.”
Impacts only smartphone search: Google had earlier introduced separate search results page for mobile and desktops. The mobile friendly algorithm will only impact the search results in the SERP appearing on small screen devices such as smartphones. That doesn’t mean you can take the update lightly because half of Google’s search comes from mobile devices.
Check the status of your website: Google’s algorithms and its releases are usually closed room operations and the outside world comes to an understanding of it only when they fall prey to the algorithm update. But, this time, Google pre-announced the launch of the mobile algorithm update as early as on February and even informed through the webmasters account to make changes to the website keeping mobile devices in mind. They also announced a page to check the mobile friendly status of the website so that it’s easy for the webmasters to make the relevant changes.
Mobile websites that pass the test also have to see to it that the image files, CSS and java files, usually blocked using robot.txt is made available for the crawler so that the website doesn’t get hit by the new algorithm update.
How does the update affect your business?: A majority of businesses rely on Google’s search traffic for generating income and leads. If the website is not following the guidelines put forward by Google with regard to mobile friendliness, these sites will lose organic traffic life never before and will have to grope in the darkness to re-optimize the website so that it is not in contention to the new mobile update.
In a SERP, the first spot, usually the one coming after the sponsored ad, receives 40% of clicks and the rest of the results, as they come down the page, receives lesser clicks, estimated to be not more than 5% to 1%.
When the process of mobile search algorithm is complete, non-mobile friendly websites that appeared on the first spot of SERP will be pushed back, in the worst scenario, even removed from the list. This could end up in ruining firms like what the algorithm change of 2011 did to many companies when Google thought quality content should be promoted.
Update is rolling out in phases: Unlike other algorithm updates of Google that hits in one go, the mobile friendly update will be rolling out in different phases in the course of the next few weeks. This means that the business owners, who might see a dip in the traffic, can make the mobile friendly changes before the completion of the update process.
Google is the decision maker: Some websites, even though they fail the mobile friendly test, could rank on the No.1 spot. This is due to over 200 numerous 200 search ranking factors of Google. The aim of the search engine giant is to give the best search result for the user, and in some cases the mobile friendliness of the website doesn’t matter when it comes to the uniqueness of the content.