OK so I have set up a replacement website but when will I know...

[deniser]

I have finally set up a new website and links have been created from the old pages to the new. Everything is up and running smoothly. It's been a month now.

Despite the fact that the old site wasn't mobile friendly (but worked on a mobile and customers did use it with a mobile) and the new one is mobile friendly, there doesn't seem to have been any change to the traffic levels - although slightly difficult to tell as August is a very quiet month for us - our busiest months are January to June.

So I thought (probably naively) that our traffic might increase purely because of the fact that Google has marked it as Mobile Friendly and might serve it up to mobile users in search results.

Am I right in thinking that I probably need to wait until there is a major Google update to see whether the exercise has been worthwhile or a total disaster? Presumably the Google Real Time update which was supposed to be coming earlier in the year hasn't happened yet.

When will I know whether the change was good or bad for SEO purposes?

 

[Ryan Scollon]

Hey,

So far, there have been no findings to prove that a mobile friendly site will increase your rankings. Google have stressed that having a mobile-friendly site is important and that they would factor that in, but I haven't seen it make one bit of difference for rankings.

However, it should improve the usability for your visitors and therefore lead to people spending longer on the site, a lower bounce rate and potentially more customers.

 

[fisicx]

Being mobile friendly is just another tick in the box. It won't make any difference to your desktop ranking but might help mobile ranking. A lot depends on how many people use Google on their phone to look for your products or services.

 

[deniser]

Being mobile friendly is just another tick in the box. It won't make any difference to your desktop ranking but might help mobile ranking. A lot depends on how many people use Google on their phone to look for your products or services.

Mobile use is 52% so I thought there would be a considerable difference.

However, August is a difficult month to use for comparison purposes because the weather has been good this year and a lot of people are on holiday.

Last year doesn't really offer valid comparison either because the mobile penalty hadn't come into force then (had it?).

But compared to August last year the Bounce Rate is down by 4% and the Session duration up by 15% so even though the total number of visitors is down, I am guessing those statistics are good ones?

 

[Ryan Scollon]

Yep, that's a decent improvement. There is no point focusing solely on traffic if all of the visitors are bouncing off your site. In Google Analytics, you should also be able to see the breakdown by device type to show if mobile users have improved performance.

 

[deniser]

Hey,

So far, there have been no findings to prove that a mobile friendly site will increase your rankings. Google have stressed that having a mobile-friendly site is important and that they would factor that in, but I haven't seen it make one bit of difference for rankings.

However, it should improve the usability for your visitors and therefore lead to people spending longer on the site, a lower bounce rate and potentially more customers.

So no change at all to rankings for people using a mobile phone? Has nothing changed at all then except the label "mobile friendly"? That would explain why there is no difference in traffic.

 

[Ryan Scollon]

It's not to say that Google won't change it's mind the future, but for now, it does not have an impact on the rankings. There have also been reports that Google will be scrapping the mobile-friendly label too.

 

[deniser]

It's not to say that Google won't change it's mind the future, but for now, it does not have an impact on the rankings. There have also been reports that Google will be scrapping the mobile-friendly label too.

OK that at least makes sense so I can stop worrying about that aspect! Thank you.

 

[deniser]

OK that at least makes sense so I can stop worrying about that aspect! Thank you.

So presumably I do have to wait for a major Google update before I know if it likes the new site or not?

 

[fisicx]

Google the business name and next to the site URL is a little down arrow. Click on this and click on 'cached'. It will tell you when Google last looked at the site. If it's after the switchover date then your ranking is what it is. If you want improved ranking your need to get to work on your SEO.

 

[UKSBD]

If you want a quicker way of checking cached snapshot of pages use this - http://www.uksbd.co.uk/local/cache/

 

[deniser]

Google the business name and next to the site URL is a little down arrow. Click on this and click on 'cached'. It will tell you when Google last looked at the site. If it's after the switchover date then your ranking is what it is. If you want improved ranking your need to get to work on your SEO.

2 September - so no nasty surprises in store further down the line?

Yes, working on the SEO all the time.

 

[justinaldridge]

Seeing as over 85% of search results are now "mobile friendly", changing your site this late in the day to be responsive is unlikely to yield any significant ranking improvements for you.

From our tests the actual ranking advantage of being mobile friendly has been very minor. Google still has to serve up the most relevant result, regardless of how it is presented.

The whole "mobile friendly" initiative by Google was to force people to make their sites better set up for mobile with the added incentive of a ranking boost. The problem was that the ranking boost was minuscule.

 

[BenWells]

So no change at all to rankings for people using a mobile phone? Has nothing changed at all then except the label "mobile friendly"? That would explain why there is no difference in traffic.

The update basically penalised sites on mobile serps that where not mobile friendly. The majority of websites are mobile friendly so nobody is really getting boost.