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A MAJOR UPDATE to Google’s search rankings for mobile sites could slice traffic to the websites for thousands of businesses in Ireland.
From tomorrow, in a move which has been labelled “mobilegeddon” for many SMEs, the search giant’s algorithms will favour sites optimised for mobile devices and bump those with poorly-tweaked websites in its results. The changes won’t affect desktop sites.
Itai Sadan, the head of US-based site builders Duda, told Business Insider small businesses would probably be hit the hardest with the changes because they were the least likely to know about them.
“Google has always been about relevancy, and content is king – but that’s changing,” he said.
Yes, they’re saying content is still extremely important, but user experience is just as important. It’s not sufficient to have all the right content — if people come to your site and the content is there but it’s not readable, that’s not good.”
The change was first announced in February and the company has released a tool for testing how mobile-friendly sites are on elements like automatically correcting the size of pages to fit device screens and having large, easy-to-read text.
The tech company’s Googlebot will also declare sites mobile-friendly if they avoid software plug-ins like Flash that many devices don’t support.
Google, which the European Commission recently charged with abusing its power as the overwhelmingly dominant search engine, has about 92% of the total search market in Europe.
Almost half of all Google search traffic in the US comes from mobile devices.
Not well connected
Meanwhile, a survey out today from IEDR, the company which manages Ireland’s .ie domain registry, revealed a large share of the country’s SMEs were poorly-equipped to cope with the changes – or make the most of the digital marketplace.
Of the two-thirds of the businesses that had websites, 54% used designs which weren’t suited to tablets and smartphones.
Only 9% of all SME sites were able to fully process sales online, while 68% were unable to take payments.
The company has launched the €150,000 OPTIMISE fund to help local enterprises to improve their websites and e-commerce offerings.
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And who do SME blame for not being prepared?
The gays?
Gerry Adams?
The welfare state?
Irish Water
Enda Kenny
IBEC will demand pay rises and larger pensions for their members as a result if this
The Brits
Yahoo?
Me. Sod off.
Gremlins…
I don’t really know much about this. But I do know that the journal loves mushroom clouds, and the one of Mary Lou outside leinster house in shades. Yep those two thing.
@Elma. You got us. If only there was a way we could combine the two…
Mary Lou wearing shades and eating mushrooms outside the Dail on a cloudy day?
A Sinn Fein party member and a bomb exploding in one photo is it…?
This comment is exactly why I read the journal!
Class!
Got it……
Bruton releases a whopper chemical cloud belch into Mary lou’s face….blinding her with the toxic regurgitation of yet another shelbourne fish lunch extravaganza. (Complete with flyin bits!)
Mary Lou’ whips on the shades in a futile effort to stop her eyes being melted from the gasses and fish head shrapnel.
Get on it bodkins!
I always choose to use the desktop version of any site over some poorly-thought-out unresponsive mobile version that takes ages to load. The most enraging thing is when there’s no option to view the desktop site. Some mobile browsers have options to only view desktop versions but it doesn’t always work.
I use alta-vista anyway
Which you run on a Netscape browser..
The good old days searching AltaVista, making website’s on GeoCities while constantly getting disconnected on a dialup 56k modem! (Telecom Eireann robbed me blind back then!!)
I can see why they are doing this – over the last 3 months 49% of my website visitors were via a mobile phone, 15% on a tablet and 36% by PC!! I didn’t think the figures were so high….so I’d imagine some businesses will get a drop in traffic alright!
I just used the Google Analyzer Tool and passed! Try it everyone.
This could, of course, panic more people into pay per click adwords, if their search rankings decrease. Google would be happy with that.
I was thinking exactly the same thing.
Eh no!!
My head nearly exploded just reading your comment!
I also bowed out twenty words into the article……I’m hoping it ended with,
“All mobile devices will explode at 12pm tomorrow” please send them fast post to Dáil Éireann.
X
Whatever you do, Dont google “google”. It will break the internet.
People can stop using Google, and probably will. I’ve notice the rise of non-relevant sights coming up in searches I do. Think their focus is on profit, which is fine they are a business, but part of their business base is attracting people to use their search engine above others. It’s at the stage where you need to skip through the first page of a Google search to get to the interesting sites.
Bing?
Just sitting here laughing to myself.
WebCrawler.com
Slightly too-scary headline.
From SearchEngineLand – http://searchengineland.com/tomorrow-is-mobilegeddon-are-you-ready-for-the-google-mobile-friendly-update-219291
Q: Will it impact desktop searchers? Will my desktop rankings drop?
A: No, it will only impact mobile searchers and will have no impact on your desktop rankings.
Should have clarified that in the opening paragraph or two. Just, you know, so people don’t literally think it’s the end of the world. I personally prefer doing real stuff on desktop, rarely if ever actually purchase something via mobile, but then again I am an inverse-hipster. With a Nokia 3320.
@why? I’ve clarified that in the article, although I thought it was fairly self-explanatory that the new mobile search rankings would only affect mobile sites.
“Mobilegeddon”??!! Do the writers at The Journal understand, perchance, the concept of “blowing things out of proportion ”
This seems all rather reasonable. If ones website is crap on a mobile device, then it will be promoted less on a mobile search.
I would have thought this seemed reasonable?
I guess “Reasonableageddon” didn’t seem as news worthy?
This was something businesses should have done back in 2012, if mobile traffic hasn’t outstripped PC/Laptop traffic yet then it will in the next 12 months.
Distilled media were all over it though, in fairness, their multiple OS apps and mobile sites are really good.
Who are Google to talk about SEO. I searched for “search engine” on Google the other day and Google didn’t even feature in the list. Duck duck go was no. 1
Time to ask Jeeves I think
Or try this tool that shows issues that your website may have on mobile and desktop browsers:
have your say