Will My MSP Website Survive Google’s Mobilegeddon?

On April 21st, Google made a major update to their search algorithm. Their algorithms are tweaked and changed all the time, but this update is significant because it totally changes the way Google indexes non-responsive websites.

If your website isn't considered mobile-friendly (more on that in a moment), it will lose rankings on google when a user is searching from a mobile browser. Although the changes are in place, the results could take days, weeks, or months to take. According to Google, this change doesn't affect desktop search. It affects mobile devices like smartphones and tablets (however Windows 8.1 tablets are only affected when using the browser from the Metro interface).

According to Google, 86% of all U.S. smartphone users search via Google. Google wants to improve the experience for those users, so websites that are optimized for mobile consumption will be much more prominent than those that aren't. You can see if Google thinks you are optimized here.

These changes are actually just a small piece of Google's newest update, which is also focused on improving how Google crawls and indexes single-page websites, web apps, and mobile apps.

What We've Observed

As with anything that Google does, there's still plenty left up in the air as far as what the damage could be as well as timelines. Here's what we've observed:

After performing Google searches on a fresh new install of Android using multiple mobile browsers while logged out of Google, we are not yet seeing sites penalized as the sites we tested still rank #1 or as they were before April 21st.. This probably won't last.

What Does This All Mean?

There's still a lot of speculation about the long-term goals of Google's latest changes. According to the hype, non-mobile websites will eventually lose their mobile organic search traffic. According to other sources, there are still some gray areas. Our suggestion is to focus on your users and provide the best experience for them. If your users are finding you on mobile devices, your website should load on mobile devices. If you don't have a responsive solution, you should consider this during your next website refresh.

How Can I Determine the Potential Impact Myself?

With Google Analytics, you can get a basic understanding of the kind of impact your site would have if mobile users couldn't find you. Log into your Google Analytics account at https://www.google.com/analytics and go to Audience > Mobile > Overview. It will show you the number of sessions and unique users your site has received on the desktop vs tablets and smartphones from the past 30 days.

So My Website isn't Mobile Friendly. What do I do?

Moving to a responsive design is the best solution. Responsive design is considered a redesign. One doesn't simply convert an existing website to responsive, as the entire template needs to be coded differently, and older design elements don't really translate well all the time. What looks and works great on a non-responsive site might be impractical for a responsive design. However, responsive sites work great across all devices regardless of the OS, browser, and other parameters, as the website just cares about fitting to the screen resolution available. We've been doing responsive design for two years so more recent sites we've done are good to go, unless you chose a non-responsive template. Older ones will need to upgrade.

If you would like to get in touch with us to discuss your options, please contact us.