Mobliegeddon, it’s a great word isn’t it?
It sounds like the world is going to end for mobiles or something, very dramatic!
However this is not going to happen so you can relax in the knowledge you will still be able to play Candy Crush on your tablet.
In fact ‘Mobilegeddon’ has been used to name the launch of a new algorithm from Google which ranks websites which are designed for mobile devices better than websites which are not. This will only affect searches using Google’s mobile search facility (ie: using Google from a mobile device).
The new algorithm was launched on 21st April 2015 and Google have said it will take a week to completely roll it out.
This isn’t something they have sprung on us, they gave us a ‘heads up’ on this a couple of months ago.
If you would like to know more about this algorithm update from Google read our blog post on Googles Mobile Algorithm or What is a Mobile Website?
I’m writing this post on the 26th April so 5 days into the roll out. Juicy SEO test new algorithm updates all year round and this one is no exception. To test this new update we have deliberately left sites out there which are absolutely shocking to use on a mobile device purely to watch the results of this change. We are also monitoring many other websites which are not mobile friendly to gather as much information as possible.
So far after monitoring 1000s of keywords every day for many websites we have yet to see any real ranking differences between the standard search results and the mobile results. There have only been a few keywords with a very minimal difference (1 position difference for 4 keywords) which we do not think is related to this update.
This isn’t to say all these ranking positions won’t all change tomorrow as there are still few days left to go. Additionally we are monitoring UK based websites and the change just might not have filtered over the pond just yet. Google are rolling out the update Data-centre by Data-centre and it will take a week to do.
Additionally from what we have read from other SEOs based in the states it doesn’t sound like much has happened over there either.
Is there really an update coming?
Now the sceptic in me is thinking that if I ran a search engine and wanted to produce good search results for mobile devices, saying to all webmasters if you don’t make your website mobile friendly it will not rank well is a pretty good way to do it. After all users of Google whilst on mobile devices want search results which work well on their device, if the user is happy they will keep using Google.
In a recent survey it was reported that it is now a near 50/50 split of people using the internet on a mobile device compared with a desktop computer. This is clearly going to sway towards the mobile device very soon and Google know this, so providing a good search results for mobile devices will be very important for them. Other search engines are slowly catching Google up in terms of monthly users so they can’t sit on their laurels.
So all this end of the world style Mobilegeddon might just be a way to help Google get what they want?
This wouldn’t be the first time Google have done something like this, it wasn’t that long ago Google said that if you move your website to a secure server (SSL cert, using HTTPS) the website will receive a boost in their search results, even if only a little. From our test results it was a VERY little boost indeed!
However it did push some reluctant webmasters to secure their website, and we all want a secure internet so it wasn’t a bad result really was it?
Even if nothing comes of this it is still a win for website owners who have made their website mobile friendly as your visitors will appreciate it!
As said above we still have a few days to go and the ‘Mobile Friendly’ tag is being seen in mobile search results so who knows!
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