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Google responds to new algorithm concerns

Lauren Kate Rawlins
By Lauren Kate Rawlins
Johannesburg, 24 Apr 2015
Google favours mobile-friendly Web sites as more people move away from desktop search.
Google favours mobile-friendly Web sites as more people move away from desktop search.

A flurry of concerns from marketers and Web masters filled social networks when Google changed its algorithm to favour mobile-friendly Web sites on mobile search this week.

Google states the change will "boost the rankings of mobile-friendly pages, those that are legible and usable on mobile devices, in mobile search results worldwide". As a result, Web sites designed for desktop only may have seen a significant decrease in traffic this week.

An article in Wired states the change is likely the "biggest" of the past three years. "And it's [a] reminder of the wonderfully magnanimous yet deeply selfish way that Google uses its market power to accelerate changes across the rest of the Internet."

A recent Mobile Africa 2015 study, conducted by mobile surveying company GeoPoll and World Wide Worx, showed 40% of South Africans access the Internet via their phones. Google notes "statistics show that more people are going 'mobile only', either because they never had a desktop or because they won't replace their existing desktop".

The company released a list of questions and answers about the new algorithm to address concerns. These included:

1. Will desktop and tablet ranking also be affected by this change?

No. Google states the change will only affect searches made on mobile devices across the world.

2. Will this affect pages and sites the same?

It is a page-level change. "If 10 of your site's pages are mobile-friendly, but the rest of your pages aren't, only the 10 mobile-friendly pages will receive a mobile ranking boost," says the search engine giant.

3. How do I check if my Web site is mobile-friendly?

A mobile-friendly test is available for individual pages and there is a mobile usability report for sites.

4. I am still working on making my site mobile-friendly; when it is ready, how long will it take before it is ranked accordingly?

A page is determined to be mobile-friendly every time it is crawled and indexed. To accelerate this process, instead of waiting for the Googlebot to do it naturally, Web masters can ask Google to re-crawl their URLs manually.

5. If my site or page is not mobile-friendly, will it not appear at all in mobile search results?

Google states it still uses a variety of signals to rank search results. "The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so even if a page with high quality content is not mobile-friendly, it could still rank high if it has great content for the query."

The full list of frequently asked questions, with specialised concerns, is available here.