Google will Penalize Websites that are not Mobile Friendly Website on April 21st
Anyone whose website is not mobile friendly website risks losing web traffic, along with facing an appreciable drop in search engine rank some time to come, Google says. The software giant began sending webmasters warnings back in January for failing to comply with mobile best practices. The warnings appear to have been a foreboding of an inevitable alteration to Google’s algorithm. Google has announced it will roll out a new algorithm on April 21, 2015. This should effectively sink the search-results ranking of mobile-unfriendly websites on mobile devices and tablets, in favour of those belonging to their competitors. It implies that your prospects will be unable to find you and this equates to lost revenue and branding.
Google is keen on affording its clients an outstanding search engine experience. They are moving naturally towards perfecting the experiencing of using search engines via mobiles. Google is keen on offering a tailored service to Smartphone and tablet users owing to the predominance of these mobile gadgets in online traffic.
Responsive Website Design (RWD) has become quite popular at present as the method preferred for going mobile, in comparison to M-Dot version. It comprises of a setup in which the server keeps sending the same HTML code across to all gadgets. CSS is then employed for altering page-rendering on the gadget. The implication here is that your website should issue browser instructions regarding sizing and scaling of the website, depending upon the viewing device employed.
There are several ways to check whether a website subscribes to the mobile best practices specified by Google. One great way is constantly tracking Google Webmaster Tools on your website. If already using Webmaster Tools, you may log in and access “Mobile Usability” under “Search Traffic” tab to its left. If you notice errors, it is highly likely that Google’s algorithm is unable to crawl on your website well for mobile responsiveness and usability.
Another way of checking is using Mobile-Friendly Test provided by Google. It offers very non-technical results and provides several reasons why Google considers your website mobile-unfriendly.
Google Penguin and Panda updates done in the past led to loss of visibility for a number of websites that failed to apply search engine best practices. This negligent matter resulted to millions in dollars lost for the involved businesses.
The crucial matter is to avoid taking this news for granted. Usage of mobile gadgets and tablets will keep rising. Google will therefore pursue algorithm updates favoring websites that work well on these devices.
