• About Us
  • Contributors
  • Guides
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Write for The SEM Post
  • Submit a tip or contact us!
  • Newsletters

The SEM Post

Latest News About SEO, SEM, PPC & Search Engines

  • Google
  • SEO
  • Mobile
  • Local
  • Bing
  • Pay Per Click
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • State of the Industry
You are here: Home / Google / Google’s Mobile Friendly Algo Will Only Affect the “Ten Blue Links” & Not In the News, In-Depth Etc.

Google’s Mobile Friendly Algo Will Only Affect the “Ten Blue Links” & Not In the News, In-Depth Etc.

April 10, 2015 at 8:37 am PST By Jennifer Slegg

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Evernote
  • SMS

mobiletenbluelink At BrightonSEO today, Gary Illyes revealed that local pack results are not affected by the new mobile friendly ranking algorithm that is due to arrive on April 21st, which makes perfect sense.

Then Gary replied to me and tweeted this:

@jenstar yep, just the "10 blue links" are, but of course teams who own the other features may also use mobile friendliness on their own

— Gary Illyes (@methode) April 10, 2015

Yes, the new mobile ranking algorithm will only apply to the organic “ten blue links” and not any other results that are included within various search queries.

Google also confirmed this earlier this week.   Google posted a comment to Barry Schwartz that results included “In the News” would not be impacted by the new mobile ranking signal.

googlemobileinthenewsIt does confirm what some people expected… only the true organic “ten blue links” would be affected by the mobile friendly ranking algorithm.

This means that other components on the page, such as “In the News”, “In-Depth Articles”, Local Pack results and any other extras on the page that are not the 1-10 (although this number can vary sometimes) straight organic search results will not be demoted for not being mobile-friendly.  And it also is why Google only shows the “Mobile-friendly” tag on the organic “ten blue links” only.

That said, other teams are responsible for the other components on the page outside of the organically chosen links.  They use their own algorithms to determine the results that are shown.  So those teams could decide to apply mobile-friendliness to those sections in the future.

It does make sense that Google is splitting the organic “ten blue links” from the other results included on the search results pages.  For example, for “In-Depth articles”, it is good that Google is serving the best in-depth results to users, especially for medical queries, regardless of whether they are mobile friendly or not.

Likewise, with the “In the News” results, because Google is only showing a small sampling of news stories – generally 3 – showing the best option is probably best.  And many news sites are often mobile friendly already, so there is probably a lesser chance a non-mobile friendly “In the News” link would be served – a SERP sampling I did for “In the news” from mobile were all mobile-friendly sites.

There is also the role of user experience as well.  Despite mobile-friendliness being a ranking factor for mobile searches, Google still needs to serve the best results to users, as that is what keeps a searcher using Google rather than switching to Bing, Yahoo or DuckDuckGo.   And while general search results have many more options to chose from when ranking, results that would be displayed in “In-Depth Articles” and “In the News” are much more specific and narrowed down in comparison.

And user experience is also why brands will still be ranking for their brand name, even if their mobile friendliness is non-existent.  Users expect to see it.

So – at least for now – only the true organic search results will be impacted by the mobile-friendliness ranking algorithm… although the other teams could apply mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor to other components in the search results at any time.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Evernote
  • SMS
The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Google+ profileMy LinkedIn profile

Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post
Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Google+ profileMy LinkedIn profile

Latest posts by Jennifer Slegg (see all)

  • Google Quality Rater Guidelines: The Low Quality 2021 Update - October 19, 2021
  • Rethinking Affiliate Sites With Google’s Product Review Update - April 23, 2021
  • New Google Quality Rater Guidelines, Update Adds Emphasis on Needs Met - October 16, 2020
  • Google Updates Experiment Statistics for Quality Raters - October 6, 2020
  • Analyzing “How Google Search Works” Changes from Google - July 8, 2020

Filed Under: Google, Mobile, SEO Tagged With: Brighton SEO, BrightonSEO

Sign up for our newsletter


Comments

  1. Linda Buquet says

    April 10, 2015 at 10:23 am

    Thanks for confirming Jen! I shared this one at the Local Search Forum too, to be sure everyone knows.

  2. Andrew Shotland says

    April 10, 2015 at 10:38 am

    I call you-know-what:

    http://www.localseoguide.com/why-googles-mobile-friendly-ranking-signal-most-likely-will-affect-local-pack-listings/

Trackbacks

  1. Google's Mobile Friendly Ranking Signal Will Not Affect Local Pack Listings - The SEM Post says:
    April 10, 2015 at 10:46 am

    […] There is also more information on this new mobile ranking algo, and how it only applies to the “ten blue links”, according to Gary Illyes.  That said, the individual product teams – including the one for […]

  2. Everything You Need to Know About Google's Mobile Friendly Algo - The SEM Post says:
    April 16, 2015 at 10:27 am

    […] Illyes has said that the mobile algo will only be affecting the core “ten blue links” – namely the ten organic search results that are not a part of any other section, such as […]

Founder & Editor

Jennifer Slegg (2051)

Sign up for our daily news recap & weekly newsletter.


Follow us online

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Linkedin
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Latest News

Google Quality Rater Guidelines: The Low Quality 2021 Update

Google has released a new version of the Google quality rater guidelines, a year after the last … [Read More...]

Recent Posts

  • Google Quality Rater Guidelines: The Low Quality 2021 Update
  • Rethinking Affiliate Sites With Google’s Product Review Update
  • New Google Quality Rater Guidelines, Update Adds Emphasis on Needs Met
  • Google Updates Experiment Statistics for Quality Raters
  • Analyzing “How Google Search Works” Changes from Google
  • Google Quality Rater Guidelines Update: New Introduction, Rater Bias & Political Affiliations
  • Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines: Reputation for News Sites; Video Content Updates; Quality for Information Sites
  • Google Makes Major Changes to NoFollow, Adds Sponsored & UGC Tags
  • Google Updates Quality Rater Guidelines Targeting E-A-T, Page Quality & Interstitials
  • Google Local Service Ads Display Pricing Estimates for Specific Locations

Categories

  • Affiliate Marketing
  • Amazon
  • Apple
  • Bing
  • Branding
  • Browsers
  • Chrome
  • Content Marketing
  • Design
  • Domains
  • DuckDuckGo
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Firefox
  • Foursquare
  • Google
    • Analytics
    • Google RankBrain
    • Quality Rater's Guidelines
  • History of Search
  • Industry Spotlight
  • Instagram
  • Internet Explorer
  • Links
  • Local
  • Mobile
  • Native Advertising
  • Other Search Engines
  • Pay Per Click
  • Pinterest
  • Publishers
  • Security
  • SEO
  • Snapchat
  • Social Media
  • State of the Industry
  • The SEM Post
  • Tools
  • Twitter
  • Uncategorized
  • User Experience
  • Video Marketing
  • Week in Review
  • Whitepapers
  • Wordpress
  • Yahoo
  • Yelp
  • YouTube
May 2022
MTWTFSS
« Oct  
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031 

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2022 · News Pro Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in