SEO Update: Google To Rank Mobile Friendly Sites Higher

SEO Update: Google To Rank Mobile Friendly Sites Higher
(Great My job Just Got Harder)    

     Great so my job just got harder.  Google has finally announced that it will be ranking websites higher that have been determined to be more mobile friendly.  How do they determine this?  Well there are some criteria that Google will use (at least what they will tell us about). 

     For example, mobile friendly sites must meet certain criteria like text size, amount of space between links, and whether content fits across a small screen. Google doesn't want to leave people to far behind so there is some direction from Google about why they wanted to do this and how you can adapt to the new algorithm.

     Not sure if your site is mobile friendly or not - take the mobile-friendly test online; if you don't pass, Google has some guidance on how you can change your site.  For me this means that I will have to be extra careful when advising the site design and architecture I advise to my clients.  Fro example, simple features like scroll bars (a mainstay for handling large text content on pages) - which look pretty on websites but doesn't do much for the mobile crowd while go the way of the Dodo.   

     But make no mistake - Google generally will ruthlessly enforce these criteria  - but perhaps this is a good things as increasingly web traffic is from mobile or tablet sources.  For example, most of my clients have mobile web traffic between 46-55%.  This is likely to cause a major shift on overall design - since the choices are between designing two versions of a website or one version that is mobile friendly.

    

This might be hard for some sites that have a tried and true format - for example Wikipedia did not pass the mobile friendly test nor do some other major sites.  It will be interesting to see what happens to web design in the next 6 months to a year.