UPDATE: Google’s mobile-friendly algorithm changes


It’s been one week since Google starting rolling out changes to search results on mobile devices, and while “Mobilegeddon” (their words, not mine) has yet to have the impact expected, more changes could be coming as Google finishes the rollout.

During a recent Hangout, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller said:

It’s definitely rolling out. I know in some of the data centers its already rolled out completely. So that is something where I think you will probably see that change over the course of a week, maybe a week and a half – something like that.

From the first day to the next day, I don’t think you’ll see a big change. But if you compare last week to next week, then you should see a big change.

And I’ve seen some blog posts out there have noticed it’s different, and tried to document the difference between the desktop results and new mobile results. So there are definitely people noticing it.

We’re continuing to keep an eye on the developments to see exactly what impact this is going to have, and we’ll post our findings here. In the meantime, I ran another search for “Chicago bowling” to see if any changes were made since my post two weeks ago. While the order of results is different, I’ll be more interested to see what happens in another week once the rollout is finalized.

Google Search for Chicago Bowling

With Google and other companies continuing to put an emphasis on mobile, as well as the massive growth of mobile Internet usage, it’s clear that having a mobile-friendly website is no longer optional for businesses wanting to keep up with the competition.

If you’re concerned with your site’s mobile performance, or just curious to learn more about Google’s changes and responsive design, send us a note!