Google is one of the most competitive search engines around and it is constantly working to improve its ranking characteristics in order to ensure that only the very best websites manage to obtain a spot on the highly sought-after page one in the SERPs. This is implemented through the use of algorithms like Panda and Penguin which are regularly updated in order to monitor the quality of a website as it changes. Read on as the team here at SEO Enterprise go over 3 facts that everyone should know about the mobile-friendly Google algorithm update that was dubbed ‘Mobilegeddon’…
Mobilegeddon was introduced on April 21st 2015
It doesn’t seem like two minutes ago since the online world was rocked by the introduction of a mobile-friendly Google algorithm, however the update was actually implemented over five years ago on the 21st of April 2015! It was coined ‘Mobilegeddon’ by Chuck Price, who wrote an article about the algorithm prior to its release in March 2015. Interestingly, it was one of the first Google updates that SEO technicians and marketers were warned about in advance and allowed to prepare for.
The algorithm targeted smartphone results
As technology advanced, more and more people were getting their hands-on high-quality smartphone software. In 2015, users were able to browse the web without the need for PC, however the results they were provided with were far and few between because only a handful of websites had been optimised for mobile use. Google caught onto this and decided to introduce an algorithm that made mobile-friendly features a compulsory ranking characteristic. As a result, the ranking of sites were mainly affected on smartphone SERPs rather than desktop SERPs.
More than 50% of websites were affected
Due to the sheer lack of mobile optimisation, statistics suggest that around 50% of rankings were affected when Mobilegeddon was first implemented. After all, many marketers were unsure what was classified as ‘mobile-friendly’ during the preparation period as the algorithm targeted a lot more than backdoor features. Luckily, Google is a fair and ethical search engine and websites were given the opportunity to improve their ranking in the weeks that followed by making relevant changes.
Here at SEO Enterprise, we play close attention to every single algorithm update that the Google search engine implements as we believe that they are the secret to a successful campaign. After all, the spiders that crawl a website are looking for algorithm-friendly features that appeal to both the search engine and the user. Since the introduction of Mobilegeddon, many SEO technicians have learned the importance of having a mobile-friendly site as the algorithm singles out and penalises those without it.
