Google to penalise websites that are not mobile friendly?
Having spoken to our SEO specialist last night I was intrigued enough to do a bit of digging around Google’s position on ranking the usability of websites when viewed from different devices and how this fits in with their ranking algorithms. From an SEO perspective, our guy claimed that very soon Google will start penalising websites which are detrimental to mobile experiences.
First port of call for me is Google’s very own initiative GOMO, a pretty straightforward but useful site which lays out the business case for making your website mobile friendly, describes some of the basic principles of how to go about producing mobile friendly experiences and links to various resources for further reading/research. As a side note, when you get a chance, take a look at their site on your mobile devise as they have gone for a separate mobile site as opposed to a responsive solution and you can tell by the user experience and performance: it’s a nice example of an effective mobile website (yes I know that sounds like stating the bleed’in obvious given the context).
The ‘Gomo-Meter’ is a useful tool for testing how mobile friendly a given website is. It provides a scoring mechanism, summary report and visuals as well as a rather useful detailed pdf report providing guidance on improving the mobile experience of the site you are testing. If you are digital agency such as us trying to sell your mobile website design/development services there is nothing better than a report generated by Google, demonstrating how (badly) a potential client’s website performs on a mobile device and outlining how best to remedy the problem/s. To give you an idea I ran the BBC website through the metre (see below):
At first, when our SEO guy mentioned Google might start penalising websites with poor mobile experiences we were unsure how they would go about it. To quote Pete “How do you write an algorithm for that?” but Patrick’s response “If anyone can write an algorithm for that it’s Google” just about hit the nail on the head. This is bread and butter for Google.
Having thought about this some more, there are a number of rudimentary tests which could be easily performed, testing the 2 fundamental principles of good mobile experiences:
- How fast does it load?
- Accessibility (is the content fluid and viewable on a mobile without scrolling all over the place and are interactive elements given enough space?)
As we know, the former is already performed by Google and the latter is not so difficult to envisage. Other good design practices for mobile web experiences include search, contact and location information being easily accessible from the first page. This is due to the nature of mobile users who want to access information quickly (through the search) and are often looking for contact or location information in the first instance. An automated test for these elements could be achieved if Semantic Web principles (utilising the W3C’s Resource Description Framework or RDF) are adhered to and then tested for by Google.
I’m pretty sure Google are far cleverer than I so I’ll leave it to them to discuss my suggestions further and come up with a beautiful algorithm 
For those who are still wondering why Google might introduce ‘mobile friendliness’ to their rankings, the expanding use of mobile devices is becoming something they cannot ignore: growth in smart phone usage, sales via smartphones, engagement via smartphones and growth in web browsing on smartphones is at an exponential rate and as a consequence this is changing the way we all experience the web:
- Smartphones sales surpassed the combined global market of desktops, laptops and notebooks in 2010 http://bit.ly/gCkOt4
- Traffic to mobile websites in 2010 grew 600% after tripling between 2009 and 2010 http://bit.ly/cYWwJj
- Google’s mobile searches grew 130% in the third quarter of 2010 http://tcrn.ch/haMlZm
So to conclude, it looks like our SEO guy might be right, Google appears to be moving toward some sort of introduction of ‘mobile friendliness’ into their rankings. Good news for those of us who have been banging on about sites needing to be accessible across all devices.
Kirsten, or the K-dog as he is known on the mean streets of his North London home, is the pater familias of UVd and has seen the company through nearly a decade of trading in Brick Lane, East London (be wary of 'back in the day' stories). Experienced snowboarder, footballer, gardener and general healthy person. Do not underestimate his ability to gain injury from any one of these extreme sports!
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