When Google announced its mobile friendliness ranking signal that is going to come into effect on April 21, 2015, was a bit unclear if this was in English only change or if it would be affecting more languages. But it’s been confirmed that this new mobile ranking signal will affect non-English search results too.
Google has some history of making changes first to English search results before expanding to other non-English languages, so some webmasters thought they might be off the hook for a while longer before the mobile ranking signal would affect their sites too.
Google wrote blog posts on various non-English webmaster blogs detailing the change in the mobile ranking signal come into effect on April 21 as well as details on how webmasters can ensure their sites mobile friendly or get more details on what needs to be corrected. This blog post went live last week on the German, Japanese and Chinese Webmaster Blogs from Google and went live today on the Portuguese Webmaster Central blog.
So if you thought you were in the clear because your site was not in English, you will probably want to start your sites mobile friendly before April 21, because it will be affecting non-English search results as well.
Jennifer Slegg
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[…] For more coverage on the mobile changes: Google’s Mobile Ranking Boost Will Be Stronger Than HTTPS Ranking Boost; Google is Working on Completely Separate Mobile Index From Desktop Index; Google Mobile Friendly Ranking Signal Affects Non-English Search Results Too […]