Google's 'Mobilegeddon' is here... Apparently.

[Dan Izzard]

Today, Google have released a 'major update' to the mobile search algorithm that could change the order that sites are displayed on mobile.

From the stats I've looked at, it seems that mobile traffic continues to grow, while although tablet traffic initially increased quickly now seems to be doing so at a slower rate.

According to Business Insider UK, around 60% of traffic now comes from mobile and that this is going to affect "millions of sites".

What do you make of the new algorithm, and have you seen any evidence yet that there have been significant changes? Will it catch out a whole raft of small business owners, or are you looking to use the opportunity to upgrade clients sites to responsive?!

 

[TomRoberts]

As always, the proof will be in the data.

I did receive a couple of agency emails yesterday advertising there "Mobile Upgrade Special Offer! Only £495!" which was cannibalism, sorry opportunism, at its finest.

After seeing a couple of damp squibs with the last two Penguin updates, I'm sceptical as to whether this will have such a dramatic effect. I also take issue with the "60% of traffic comes from mobile" stat Business Insider are throwing about. Looking at a number of analytics accounts, that figure is pretty accurate, but what I've consistently seen is that mobile traffic typically arrives from social sites and referring websites, rather than search engines. Mobile organic search, while growing, isn't a touch on mobile display/social traffic (IMO).

I've also gone back and forth a bit with regards to who this will affect most. Are ecommerce purchasing decisions usually made on mobile? Or is it mainly desktop/laptop or app?

Is mobile typically the "first-touch" channel? IE - the first time someone visits a site, is it through mobile? If so, this could have a big effect on all businesses.

Services - particularly local services - they will likely feel the biggest impact of this change. What's that? A Google update that damages the little guy but leaves big websites unscathed? Unheard of!

As always with these updates, we're going to have to wait and see. Be wary of the "guru" who has predicted how the algorithm works (and how you can exploit it) with his blog post, published at 1pm today.

 

[Steve Alphabet]

This has been ongoing for a while in my experience... it's not a sudden thing. Every time a client of mine switched to a mobile-friendly/responsive design they've had a rankings boost.

 

[leveldisc]

This is the new millennium bug in my opinion.

Assuming this isn't going to leak into tablet/desktop searches it seems to me it's largely only going impact sites that are able to convert on mobile, despite a poor mobile experience.

I'm sure sites will lose traffic, but are they actually converting that traffic ?

 

[LowPrices.uk]

It strikes me that part of the reason Google is making a song and dance about this because it needs to be able to index the information in mobile apps in order to protect its business interests. Mobile apps were a big threat to its business model unless it could index them.

 

[SEO Lady]

I did receive a couple of agency emails yesterday advertising there "Mobile Upgrade Special Offer! Only £495!" which was cannibalism, sorry opportunism, at its finest.

Opportunism you may call it, I call it education and raising awareness. Back in 2009 my biggest challenge offering SEO services was that I had to explain my services before I could even begin to sell my services.

Now in 2014 and 2015 when I'm approached, clients understand they need SEO and I don't need to explain it anywhere as much.

I'm wondering if this may be also be the trend with this in 12-24 months time?

My guess it's that it's going to be a mad rush in a few months' time when ecommerce sites see a drop in revenue, and vagually remember that email from Google back in March 2015 warning them of the mobile-friendly news, leading to a mad rush of people screaming "Why didn't you tell me about this in the first place"

Then I can show them the emails I sent out warning people of the change.
Then there will be the wails of "My competitor is taking my business! Fix it ASAP! How long before I get to Google page 1 again?"

Personally, I'm not in the web development industry per se, but I've been able to help a few of my clients already change their Wordpress theme to a mobile friendly theme.

I feel sorry for wallets of ecommerce clients with thousands of products on a custom HTML build that was launched back in 2008 and hasn't changed since.

I'm sure sites will lose traffic, but are they actually converting that traffic ?

Have they ever converted traffic from mobiles? Fiddly little text and tiny buttons to buy, forms barely visible when trying to enter your card and address details are the biggest turn offs for me.

Rather than bookmarking the URL and buying later when I'm on my laptop, I'd much rather buy it now from a site that's optimised for mobile anyway.

 

[Scott@KarmaContent]

Opportunism you may call it, I call it education and raising awareness. Back in 2009 my biggest challenge offering SEO services was that I had to explain my services before I could even begin to sell my services.

Now in 2014 and 2015 when I'm approached, clients understand they need SEO and I don't need to explain it anywhere as much.

I'm wondering if this may be also be the trend with this in 12-24 months time?

My guess it's that it's going to be a mad rush in a few months' time when ecommerce sites see a drop in revenue, and vagually remember that email from Google back in March 2015 warning them of the mobile-friendly news, leading to a mad rush of people screaming "Why didn't you tell me about this in the first place"

Then I can show them the emails I sent out warning people of the change.
Then there will be the wails of "My competitor is taking my business! Fix it ASAP! How long before I get to Google page 1 again?"

Personally, I'm not in the web development industry per se, but I've been able to help a few of my clients already change their Wordpress theme to a mobile friendly theme.

I feel sorry for wallets of ecommerce clients with thousands of products on a custom HTML build that was launched back in 2008 and hasn't changed since.


Have they ever converted traffic from mobiles? Fiddly little text and tiny buttons to buy, forms barely visible when trying to enter your card and address details are the biggest turn offs for me.

Rather than bookmarking the URL and buying later when I'm on my laptop, I'd much rather buy it now from a site that's optimised for mobile anyway.

I think it's important to differentiate the web developers offering a genuine service to those jumping on the bandwagon. Undoubtedly there will be lots of scam artists out there selling mobile optimisation services at vastly inflated prices whereas the genuine people will be charging a fair rate for the work involved, whether that's a tweak or a full overhaul.

 

[TomRoberts]

I think it's important to differentiate the web developers offering a genuine service to those jumping on the bandwagon. Undoubtedly there will be lots of scam artists out there selling mobile optimisation services at vastly inflated prices whereas the genuine people will be charging a fair rate for the work involved, whether that's a tweak or a full overhaul.

Indeed. I think my point was also that your agency (if you have one) should have notified you about this weeks/months ago and worked with you to help prepare already. If they haven't, well, get a new one frankly. Especially when you consider this is the number 1 trend in the UK on Twitter right now and has permeated national news over the last few days (which reinforces my belief that it may be a damp squib).

 

[fisicx]

Checking the serps on my mobe and my non-responsive site hasn't budged. The squib may well be damper than first thought....

 

[leveldisc]

Have they ever converted traffic from mobiles? Fiddly little text and tiny buttons to buy, forms barely visible when trying to enter your card and address details are the biggest turn offs for me.

Rather than bookmarking the URL and buying later when I'm on my laptop, I'd much rather buy it now from a site that's optimised for mobile anyway.

This is my point really. Most sites affected won't lose business because of the algorithm change as they never had it in the first place, even if they had great mobile serps.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

This is the new millennium bug in my opinion.

Assuming this isn't going to leak into tablet/desktop searches it seems to me it's largely only going impact sites that are able to convert on mobile, despite a poor mobile experience.

I'm sure sites will lose traffic, but are they actually converting that traffic ?

Google never used the mobile phone word, they have always said 'mobile devices' which of course means any device that is mobile.

For clarity this is only impacting on mobile searches, i.e. searches done on the google mobile search platform (which many get directed to, and of course the google app automatically uses.

 

[SEO Lady]

For clarity this is only impacting on mobile searches, i.e. searches done on the google mobile search platform (which many get directed to, and of course the google app automatically uses.

How about Safari then?

 

[leveldisc]

Google never used the mobile phone word, they have always said 'mobile devices' which of course means any device that is mobile.

For clarity this is only impacting on mobile searches, i.e. searches done on the google mobile search platform (which many get directed to, and of course the google app automatically uses.

My understanding is that Google doesn't consider tablets as mobile devices. So if you use safari on an ipad, for example, you don't use the mobile network.

Happy to be contradicted here.

 

[TomRoberts]

Checking the serps on my mobe and my non-responsive site hasn't budged. The squib may well be damper than first thought....

One thing I would note is that this will likely take a couple of weeks to roll-out fully. Penguin 3 acted like that.

 

[ADNattan]

Most updates take a while. I'll be interested to see what effect, if any, this is going to have on desktop searches. That's the main unknown quantity here.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

How about Safari then?

Safari is a browser it can be run on desktop or phone, so I don't understand the question

 

[OldWelshGuy]

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/finding-more-mobile-friendly-search.html is the official announcements. it says 'mobile search, & devices.

I take that to mean any device that is running google mobile search.

 

[Nuno]

this is the number 1 trend in the UK on Twitter right now and has permeated national news over the last few days

When you consider that both these statements are wrong you understand the level of mistrust of SEO people and why opportunistic SEO offers are seen as part and parcel of the snakeoil salesmen's game.

Some, a few, sites will need changing and will be changed soon. Many sites will be changed as this gradually filters through.
Of course many sites won't need changing as they are responsive already.
Hardly mobilegeddon.

 

[UKSBD]

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/finding-more-mobile-friendly-search.html is the official announcements. it says 'mobile search, & devices.

I take that to mean any device that is running google mobile search.

They say the change is for mobile users, not tablet users.
What the definition of each is though who knows.
https://twitter.com/googlewmc/status/583384126977363968

 

[OldWelshGuy]

yet when I asked for clarification I was told those using the mobile platform. i.e. the google mobile search platform, which my Android tablet defaults to ?

 

[UKSBD]

They've put it on the FAQs page too now
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/faqs-april-21st-mobile-friendly.html

 

[TomRoberts]

When you consider that both these statements are wrong you understand the level of mistrust of SEO people and why opportunistic SEO offers are seen as part and parcel of the snakeoil salesmen's game.

Excuse me?

Not quite sure what you're accusing me of, but regarding my statements:

hzzp[://]i.imgur.com[/]vtiDR4d.png

hzzp:[//]trends24.in[/]united-kingdom/

Both look pretty true to me (Can't post links yet)

You might want to re-read over my comment on the event as well before throwing those kind of accusations.

 

[fisicx]

Just because the news feeds have picked up a buzzword doesn't really equate to it being national news. Put any buzzword into Google and you will find news stories about it.

I looked at your trend link and couldn't see mobilegeddon anywhere. It's not even on my trending thing on twitter.

The news is only of interest to those with websites. The rest of the world couldn't care less.

 

[Nuno]

Excuse me?

Not quite sure what you're accusing me of, but regarding my statements:
hzzp[://]i.imgur.com[/]vtiDR4d.png
hzzp:[//]trends24.in[/]united-kingdom/
Both look pretty true to me (Can't post links yet)
You might want to re-read over my comment on the event as well before throwing those kind of accusations.

I'm sorry. Excuse me. I'm a noob. I didn't realize that "describe your sex life in a tv show" was Twitter speak for "responsive website" and that it hid the number one spot so effectively. Rather clever.

And I'm sorry, excuse me. Noob to the news. I didn't know that the piccy-wiccys (to use Russell Brand's term) on imgur 'permeated' the national news. Or were even that important.

You are quite obviously correct. In a mozzie sort of way. Tantum eruditi sunt liberi eh?

 

[Jeff FV]

... and has permeated national news over the last few days ...

If only it had. I'm beginning to get a bit fed up of all this election malarkey.

 

[StevePoster]

According to other locations like United Kingdom and United States there were no changes yet regarding on the mobile-friendly update and still the webmasters as well as SEO are monitoring their websites. Google stated that there are 4.7% more websites turned mobile-friendly today compared two months ago.

 

[TomRoberts]

I'm sorry. Excuse me. I'm a noob. I didn't realize that "describe your sex life in a tv show" was Twitter speak for "responsive website" and that it hid the number one spot so effectively. Rather clever.

And I'm sorry, excuse me. Noob to the news. I didn't know that the piccy-wiccys (to use Russell Brand's term) on imgur 'permeated' the national news. Or were even that important.

You are quite obviously correct. In a mozzie sort of way. Tantum eruditi sunt liberi eh?

Not sure what your problem is. I was just trying to point out that 4 national newspaper websites, the BBC and the BBC World Service had covered the story. If that's not national news coverage to you, then OK. And regarding the trending link, you can see that the hashtag was trending if you scroll back to the time when I first mentioned it. Anyway, doesn't really matter, just trying to add a bit more to the conversation, not sure why you've acted like such a dick about it though.

I looked at your trend link and couldn't see mobilegeddon anywhere. It's not even on my trending thing on twitter.

As before, was trending when I first made the post. Not a massive issue

The news is only of interest to those with websites. The rest of the world couldn't care less.

Ha, that's clever!

 

[fisicx]

....If that's not national news coverage to you, then OK.

National new coverage would be when it appears on the front page of the website, is on the telly and in the newspapers. If you do a google search for 'paris hilton' you will get results from multiple news websites. That doesn't make it national news though. But mobilegeddon seems to have passed by without trauma so we can now probably get on with life.

 

[TomRoberts]

National new coverage would be when it appears on the front page of the website, is on the telly and in the newspapers. If you do a google search for 'paris hilton' you will get results from multiple news websites. That doesn't make it national news though. But mobilegeddon seems to have passed by without trauma so we can now probably get on with life.

Fair enough, may have got my definition wrong on that front then. Bit of a moot point anyway. I think we'd need to wait a week or so to see the algorithm's impact (if any). As per Google:

"You won't be able to definitively determine whether your site’s rankings are impacted by the mobile-friendly update by April 22nd. While we begin rolling out the mobile-friendly update on April 21st, it’ll be a week or so before it makes its way to all pages in the index. "

I acted like a dick as you so placidly put it because I saw a statement which had all the hallmarks of wrongheaded narcissism, that is, was full of it.
You were and are wrong, now you are abusive. If this is your idea of 'adding' to a conservation your SEO moz/oracle bubble serves you badly. There are people who might not be expert with SEO but have finely tuned BS detectors, (and fine tuning is not often necessary for a SEO BS meter.)

If that's your opinion I won't waste my time trying to change it.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Yep it is a roll out not an index refresh, so it has to propagate.

 

[ZeroDouble]

I actually saw some strange anomalies across several of my sites targeting the US over the last few days...

Sunday 19th April

My traffic started to spike at around 5pm (EDT) and I saw a hefty increase in unique visitors, from 2000 to 10,000.

Monday 20th April

Traffic up from 2000 visitors to 4000

Tuesday 21st April

Traffic up from 2000 visitors to 2500.

Also worth pointing out that 99% of those 'extra' visitors were from mobile devices, and I didn't just see this on one site, there were several that showed [mobile] traffic increases.

 

[Graham Curtis]

How much of an influence is mobile rankings going to have on desktop rankings?

 

[ADNattan]

Probably very little. As far as I've read so far, it'll only affect people using Google mobile search.

Of course, if the changed results outperform those on desktops, it's possible Google might look at mobile friendly design as an over-arching indicator of quality on all platforms, but that's just speculation.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

How much of an influence is mobile rankings going to have on desktop rankings?

Directly I would say none, as the wording google used was 'how the sites performed on the devices'. however if traffic and usage metrics impact on overall rankings, then it could well improve/reduce desktop rankings by reducing/increasing the overall trust of the domain urls.

 

[Graham Curtis]

Thanks for the information it's much appreciated!

So where can you find this sort of information out?

 

[Graham Curtis]

Other than here obviously!!

 

[ADNattan]

Keep an eye on Google's blogs, and on places like Moz and Search Engine Land.

 

[Graham Curtis]

Cheers! I will be doing!

 

[Sheng]

I think it's not a direct switch, also this change like previous google updates, will be slowly rolled out I guess.

 

[Ali-v-8]

Only difference i have noticed is a slight increase in http://m. being visible in the search results when searched on a mobile phone.