Google mobile algo to be bigger than Panda / Penguin as deadline looms

[Whitey]

Gary Illyes retweeted
Aleyda Solis @aleyda Mar 17
Zineb from Google at #smx Munich about the mobile ranking update: is going to have a bigger effect than penguin and panda! [twitter.com...] .

In case you know someone who hasn't heard, you might want to forewarn them of the impending intensity of this.

I wonder if the algorithm will allow a quicker reprieve for those that go under, but are mobile friendly afterwards, or, if it makes those who are putting in late changes more vulnerable, as the algorithm might be baking already, as the deadline looms.

Anyone you know not heard / caring ; other thoughts ?

[lucy24]

For text-heavy content, paragraph lengths and white space (which is influenced by paragraph length) come into play.

@media screen and (min-width: 640px) {
 br.small {display: none;}
}

But don't quote me; I just made that up off the top of my head.

[Kratos]

I may be flamed for this but I shall state:

"PR determines how fast your site will be validated as mobile friendly once you make the change to mobile friendliness".

I've already put the anti-flame coat. Obviously the higher the PR the faster G will pick up changes on your site. I'm more preparing for the whole "but PR was last updated on december 2013 you freaking noob!11!".

Also, our earnings have almost doubled since we went mobile friendly for our top sites. Can we start a new thread to d-size our earnings from Google mobile traffic please? (*please note the sarcasm*)

[RedBar]

I thought PR had stopped being an "anything" factor?

Not that I've ever taken any notice of it whatsoever!

[Kratos]

Only if you've fallen for the actual PR of MOZ and their homies over at the noob forums that we all know. And by PR of MOZ I'm taking of their Public Relations and how they've smartly convinced many people to use their SEOMoz stuff to asses a site. Lol if only they knew and paid attention to their bot traffic on their logs, they'd see the reality of rogerbot.

[londrum]

i've just noticed that Bing are including the same "mobile friendly" tag in their SERPs as google (...I'm a bit behind the times). but my site seems to fail in Bing. the whole thing passes okay in google though.
Bing don't have a tool though, as far as I can find out -- that's a bit of a pain. so they don't give you any help as to what you're failing on.

[RedBar]

Yeah, that's being discussed here:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[Whitey]

i've just noticed that Bing are including the same "mobile friendly" tag in their SERPs as google

Seems that Bing always follow Google on things of importance. Not that too many folks will be following them, but I imagine they will have a "due date" soon, like google when their mobile SERP's will follow suit.

[tallguy]

A question regarding the 21st april deadline,

Assuming we are late to change a website or change a website to mobile friendly after may or june ( a month or two later), will our sites recover or improve ranking ? Or will they be kinda penalized ?

Anyone ?

thanks

[Johan007]

Bing don't have a tool though, as far as I can find out

Google tool should be good enough but keep an eye on:
www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster

[EditorialGuy]

Assuming we are late to change a website or change a website to mobile friendly after may or june ( a month or two later), will our sites recover or improve ranking ? Or will they be kinda penalized ?

Google has said that the "mobile-friendly" factor in the mobile-search algorithm will operate at the page level in real time.

So, as you make individual pages mobile-friendly, you should benefit from the changes after Google has had a chance to recrawl those pages.

[Kratos]

@EditorialGuy I really want to believe...but after the flip flopping with the live Panda refreshing and how it's supposed to be integrated into the core algorithm I just do not trust the word 100% of Google when it comes to updates. And no I'm not on of those Matt Cutts haters (if anything I miss him) or one of those "LOL teh Googl0rz 'r' laying 'cos its a conspirazy and tehy just want the adworks monayz11!".

It is true though that they have been really fast in acknowledging mobile friendliness in the SERPs mobile friendly tag. So maybe we will be impressed with it. We have actually left a couple of sites non mobile friendly to test how much they drop and how fast they regain their rankings. They're site ranking for some good keywords but they're only bringing a couple of hundred bucks a month each so it's time for us to get testing. Well we're always testing but I think this is going to be huge and a lot can be learned from this update so we're willing to lose some money for the sake of learning.

[EditorialGuy]

For what it's worth, we had a huge surge in mobile traffic last week, but this week it's down to more reasonable levels. I wonder if Google might have been testing the new mobile algorithm here and there last week?

[olenoides]

@EditorialGuy I saw the same thing. Mobile traffic from Google doubled for two days last week while desktop traffic didn't change. It's since dropped back down. Testing the algorithm with a subset of searchers makes sense.

[samwest]

If I had a dime for every mobile or tablet user that hit my cart page and abandoned it, I'd be a millionaire. Not a fan of pandering to mobile or tablets, although I already did.

[tangor]

This is much like G reinventing the wheel (RWD/Mobile First) ... We went through all this back in the 1980s with ASCII/ANSI BBS systems on (at best!) 320x240 screens. then came 640, 800, 1024, etc. and each created a new "firestorm" of design/usability. The change from 110 baud to the multi-mps rates are also a factor.

I'm not putting the genie back in the bottle and returning to 1980s screen design (which is what mobile is these days). I will, however, and have, grant and allow RWD to float some sections of the site depending on viewport... but not changing anything else. There's no "pixel standard" at this time, so good luck on "beauty"... though percents do a fair job as do ems (where I have been for years).

These monkeyshines will evaporate in a few months (year or two at most) and G will come off with egg on face for having made such a big deal out of this. Webmasters would/will make the changes necessary themselves as the technology advances. G taking a stand and forcing change (won't appear in the mobile serps) is a ham-fisted way of doing things.

[Selen]

Tangor is right. In about several months the standard minimum viewport size could be 480px (as opposed to 320px now). But I'm glad my competitors are occupied with chasing the pixels when I can focus on creating better content ;)

[EditorialGuy]

These monkeyshines will evaporate in a few months (year or two at most) and G will come off with egg on face for having made such a big deal out of this.

How so? If a lot of people are using smartphones, doesn't it make sense for Google to encourage practices that make it easier for Google to serve up relevant and useful mobile-friendly search results?

It remains to be seen how many Web publishers benefit financially from jumping on the mobile bandwagon (some will, some won't), but Google isn't footing their development bills.

[tangor]

doesn't it make sense for Google to encourage practices that make it easier for Google to serve up relevant and useful mobile-friendly search results?

er... No.

Google isn't serving content. They create none (though they scape a lot and monetize everyone else's).

It is not up to G to say what is or isn't suitable. The market, the web, the user, the webmaster will determine that all by themselves. No nanny required.

And those who think they need a Nanny have one already who is willing, and admonishing threats if you don't behave.

The resolution of smartphones is nowhere near peaked or defined. There will be teething problems, sure, but for now, this "mobile first" is a tempest in a teapot.

[Whitey]

The resolution of smartphones is nowhere near peaked or defined. There will be teething problems, sure, but for now, this "mobile first" is a tempest in a teapot

@Tangor - interesting angles indeed as site owners jump to the left and then to the right.

Some earlier comments from others mention that conversion rates on mobile are a fraction of their desktop conversions. If it's not working for mobile/mobility , then the users are not happy, so something will have to give eventually. Funny thing is, if users are not happy, revenues to Google will be challenged also, which is probably why it's footprint is now a lot larger and more diversified than the SERP's.

It's one of the reasons I think Google can't be really bothered to finalise rolling updates on Panda / Penguin, because basically there's a diminishing commercial need to do it with the onset of the environment. There are bigger commercial priorities I sense.

[petehall]

It is not up to G to say what is or isn't suitable. The market, the web, the user, the webmaster will determine that all by themselves.

I agree.

But where their own algorithm is concerned they can do whatever they like unfortunately.

[flatfile]

Reading some of the comments here it seems that either mobile has no effect on some niches or we have fossils that just refuse to change. Mobile is something we've all seen coming years ago. That being said, almost everyone in my niche went mobile a long time ago so I think this algo will either have no impact or hurt me.

[flatfile]

Webmasters would/will make the changes necessary themselves as the technology advances. G taking a stand and forcing change (won't appear in the mobile serps) is a ham-fisted way of doing things.

Isn't that the whole point of "rankings"?. A search engine that says "a site/page with an attribute X shouldn't rank" is not something new.

[EditorialGuy]

It is not up to G to say what is or isn't suitable. It is not up to G to say what is or isn't suitable. The market, the web, the user, the webmaster will determine that all by themselves.

Google isn't saying what's suitable. Google is merely choosing to provide a better search experience for mobile users, and it's giving site owners a "heads up" so they can benefit (or not) if they so choose.

If mobile users don't like mobile-friendly results, or if Webmasters don't feel that mobile traffic is important to them, Google will figure that out and adapt.

A search engine that says "a site/page with an attribute X shouldn't rank" is not something new.

Exactly. What's more, Google hasn't said that mobile-unfriendly pages won't rank. It has merely said that mobile-friendliness will be a ranking factor in mobile search results. (Google hasn't said anything about using "mobile-friendliness" as an all-or-nothing filter.)

[mrengine]

Mobile is too broad of a term for this update when they have said it is for smart phones. I don't get much smart phone traffic, despite having good mobile ranks now, and can goes days without seeing a single smart phone visitor. Those with high hopes that this update will help them considerably may be in a good industry that attracts smart phone traffic (events, locations, etc.) or are just exercising wishful thinking.

[RedBar]

My B2B websites mobile traffic is increasing all the time, I have clients in countries that have no fixed lines whatsoever, purely mobile. I actually have a partner in India whose entire work life revolves around his Blackberry, he personally never touches either a desktop or tablet.

Everybody's mileage will inevitably vary however for my industry it is welcomed.

[EditorialGuy]

Mobile is too broad of a term for this update when they have said it is for smart phones.

Definitions evolve. A couple of years ago, Google (and a lot of other folks) included tablets in the definition of "mobile," probably because the iPad and its ilk used mobile operating systems. Now, Google regards tablets as being more like laptops and desktops. For that matter, Google currently assumes that "mobile-friendly" means that a page can be viewed at 320 pixels wide. That assumption is likely to change over time, or perhaps Google mobile search will, at some time, use tweak mobile search results in real time for the user's device: i.e., someone searching on "widgets" with a tiny iPhone 3GS might get different results from someone searching on the same query with a large-screen iPhone 6+.

I'm less interested in whether Google uses the term "mobile-friendly" or "smartphone-friendly" than in what impact the mobile-search update will have on my traffic. I suspect that the impact will be positive (on traffic, though perhaps not on revenue).


[EDITED: Added text to "definitions evolve" paragraph]

[Dugger]

My top earning site currently is not officially mobile friendly and earns about 25% of its Adsense income from mobile mostly from long tail keywords. I will not be making this site "mobile friendly" as it would probably require that I not display my non-Google advertisers in mobile. I am waiting to see how the site will be impacted but suspect that because the keywords that are earning money are long tail Google will show the results in mobile simply because there would not be a lot of competition.

[seoskunk]

I just checked today and some major brands are not responsive or mobile friendly at all. Had a client who is complaining his site is too big on his screen and why can't it be like [brand website]. To my surprise the particular site was neither mobile or responsive. I hope this is a game changer and some relief to some genuinely good sites out there that don't feature at all in Google main results.

If we do see a rise of responsive sites I may well fake my UA to search Google, then I may get to see some genuinely good sites whilst I am searching.

[keyplyr]

Interesting to see the amount of effort put forth to avoid facing the reality that the internet is indeed changing and if you want to remain relevant, you will need to change with it.

[tangor]

Interesting to see the amount of effort put forth to avoid facing the reality that the internet is indeed changing and if you want to remain relevant, you will need to change with it

Not so sure the internet is changing (sans the US FTC take over of the net via Title II), but we are seeing a dumb down to 320 for mobiles, a niche... a large niche! ... but a niche nonetheless.

G is currently saying that this roll out on the 21st affects only mobile serps. If so, how worried should the non-mobile or can't mobile (for whatever reasons) be?

All reports above (majority) indicate viewers but not clickers/buyers via mobile. Ultimately the market will sort itself out If your income is desktop, that's where you focus. If it is mobile, you go there.

At this point G has not said "Ain't 320? Get No Money"

Until that happens or the market proves it true there is every reason to wait and see.

Having said that, if you can do RWD and not kill the site experience, why not do it?