• 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 / New Google Mobile Algo: Google Begins Reducing Visibility for Non-Mobile Friendly Sites That Received Warnings

New Google Mobile Algo: Google Begins Reducing Visibility for Non-Mobile Friendly Sites That Received Warnings

January 29, 2015 at 5:20 am PST By Jennifer Slegg

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

google logo yellowEarlier this month, Google began sending warnings to some webmasters that their sites were not mobile friendly. Not all webmasters received one of these notices, so there’s little bit uncertainty about what criteria was needed in order to prompt one of these warnings.

However, now we know that Google is taking action against those sites if they are not mobile friendly in the form of a new mobile only algorithm. People began noticing that websites that received this notice are no longer ranking when a search is done on a mobile device. The rankings are retained for desktop searches, but the visibility is mobile searches drops dramatically. So it does seem that it is only specifically affecting mobile searches, at least at this time.

Ryan Jones, Manager, Search & Analytics at  SapientNitro began noticing the drop recently. “Over the past few days I’ve seen some sites that have gotten warnings retain their #1 desktop rankings for competitive keywords but fall several pages down for the same keywords in mobile.”

It raises the question about whether this is the same fluctuation that prompted the chatter on Friday about a possible update although Google stated they didn’t believe it was either Panda or Penguin related in a Google Hangout.

But with such an emphasis being placed on mobile-friendly sites by Google, particularly in the last year, many SEOs have been expecting last year that an additional mobile-only algorithm to begin affecting non-mobile friendly sites at some point.  They added mobile tools to Google Webmaster Tools to assist webmasters in making their sites mobile-friendly.

Alan Bleiweiss of AlanBleiweiss.com believes that the mobile warnings may be tied to page speed, which would explain why some mobile un-friendly sites received the warning in Google Webmaster Tools yet others did not.

As far back as the MayDay update, the writing was on the wall that page speed was a factor for SEO and would become more emphasized over time. That proved to be quite true for all search queries, regardless of platform or device. The same can be said about overall page processing, and a host of quality considerations. It was inevitable then, that this would be adapted specific to mobile search and we are now seeing that play out. Sites that are ranking for phrases for desktop searches are now not showing up for mobile searches even when they previously had.

We’re not talking about just mobile related to localization. We’re talking about quality factors.  Trust factors unique to a mobile experience.

Google is displaying “mobile friendly” labels on many sites as another example that they are taking it to a new level.  Unfortunately that specific action is critically flawed – they’re displaying many sites that are not mobile friendly from a site speed or page processing performance perspective specific to mobile but where those sites are doing better for those signals on desktop devices.  Which is directly opposite of how they’re NOT displaying other sites specific to mobile devices due to performance issues.

So it’s still an in-flux issue, however the only safe and proper course of action is for site owners to get their act together regardless of device type, but more now than ever, for mobile if that is where they have the most weakness, yet across the board if the problems are wide spread enough.

For users that may not have made their sites mobile friendly yet, if they are affected by this new mobile algo, it will likely show pretty clearly a dramatic drop in mobile traffic without a corresponding drop in desktop traffic. Site seem to beranking as usual in desktop, however the unfortunate thing is that some webmasters might not realize that a drop in traffic is strictly mobile related.

Update: Google is continuing to send more warnings for non-mobile-friendly websites.

  • 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)

  • 2022 Update for Google Quality Rater Guidelines – Big YMYL Updates - August 1, 2022
  • 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

Filed Under: Google, Mobile, SEO

Sign up for our newsletter


Trackbacks

  1. Google Announces Mobile Friendliness Will Be a Ranking Signal Starting April 21st - The SEM Post says:
    February 27, 2015 at 5:10 am

    […] This really doesn’t come as much of the surprise as Google has been heavily promoting mobile friendly web design for quite some time, so many webmasters and SEOs have seen the writing on the wall since at least last year. And earlier this year they made a change where users that received the warning that their sites were not mobile friendly noticed that their mobile search traffic from Google declined afterwards. […]

Founder & Editor

Jennifer Slegg (2052)

Sign up for our daily news recap & weekly newsletter.


Follow us online

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Linkedin
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Latest News

2022 Update for Google Quality Rater Guidelines – Big YMYL Updates

We finally have the first Google Quality Rater Guidelines update of 2022, and like usual, it is … [Read More...]

Recent Posts

  • 2022 Update for Google Quality Rater Guidelines – Big YMYL Updates
  • 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

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
March 2023
MTWTFSS
« Aug  
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031 

Meta

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

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in