Skip to main content
Blog General

Google Mobilegeddon and Magento

Tamizh Selvan
April 21, 2015 |

Mobilegeddon’ – is the name that media has given to Google’s latest change in search algorithm.  This change will promote mobile friendly sites to take the prime spots in search results and demote the websites that are not mobile friendly.

Google was all about relevance and content but now it is bringing in user experience factor in their search results. Google views this move as a first step in helping mobile users  to have a better search experience.

According to recent trends close to 60% of online traffic is through mobiles. Many ecommerce sites are moving from ‘Mobile-First’ to ‘Mobile-Only’ sites and Google wants users to have a good mobile web experience whenever they click on a mobile link.

To make it easier for people to find the information that they’re looking for, Google will be adding a “mobile-friendly” label to its mobile search results.

A page is eligible for the “mobile-friendly” label if it meets the following criteria:

  • Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash.
  • Uses text that is readable without zooming.
  • Responsive layout so that users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom.
  • Places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped.

According to Google, “We see these labels as a first step in helping mobile users to have a better mobile web experience. We are also experimenting with using the mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal” 

The Mobile-Friendly Test (MFT) uses Googlebot to fetch the page. If Googlebot is blocked from fetching the page, JavaScript, CSS, or other resources, the MFT may not be able to detect it.

Mobilegeddon

If you want to know if a page is eligible for the mobile-friendly label in Google Search, you need to use the Mobile-Friendly Test.

According to searchengineland.com, this will affect only mobile searches and will not have any impact on desktop rankings. This will also not affect tablet searches. (Please see References 4 and 5 for more information)

Learnings

  1. Websites that receive most of their traffic from phones will be the most affected.
  2. The algorithm works a real time which means, Google will pick up the changes when it is made and the sites will benefit from the change.
  3. This algorithm works on page-to-page basis which means whatever pages are mobile-friendly those changes are picked up and the sites benefit from the same.
  4. Go responsive, NOW.

How  to make Magento Sites Mobile Friendly

When it comes to ecommerce search results help retailers to bring in more customers and a slight degradation in rankings would have a direct impact in sales and profitability. Google has provided a guide specific to Magento to make it more mobile friendly .

Though these changes impact only the mobile search results, since majority of the traffic comes through mobile, retailers who have not adopted a mobile strategy should think about upgrading their ecommerce portals to a mobile friendly interface.

References

  1. http://www.businessinsider.in/Google-is-making-a-giant-change-this-week-that-could-crush-millions-of-small-businesses/articleshow/46981562.cms
  2. http://www.portent.com/uncategorized/the-coming-mobile-seo-end-times.htm
  3. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.in/2014/11/helping-users-find-mobile-friendly-pages.html
  4. http://searchengineland.com/tomorrow-is-mobilegeddon-are-you-ready-for-the-google-mobile-friendly-update-219291
  5. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-mobile-friendly-algorithm-smartphone-only-20094.html
Tamizh Selvan

Tamizh Selvan heads the marketing efforts for DCKAP and its brands. He manages its content marketing and blog. He is a bibliophile and a cinephile. He can be found browsing at any one of the popular bookshops in Chennai during the weekends or watching movies at home.

More posts by Tamizh Selvan