Google Mobilegeddon is a term that came into existence in April 2015, referring to a significant change that Google made to its search algorithm. The nickname “Mobilegeddon” emerged from the digital community’s fear of the potentially drastic impacts the change could have on websites.
The change was announced in February 2015, providing webmasters with two months notice. Google stated, “Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact on our search results.” (Google Webmasters Central Blog, 2015)
The aim of this update was to improve the experience of mobile users by prioritizing mobile-friendly websites in Google’s search results. This implies that if a website is not mobile-friendly, it would possibly lose its ranking on Google’s search result pages (SERP), affecting both its visibility and organic traffic on mobile devices.
One example of a website that was reportedly hit by Mobilegeddon is boxofficemojo.com, a site dealing with movie box office data. According to a case study by Searchmetrics, just after the mobile update, the site saw a decrease in mobile SEO visibility by 26 percent. This significant drop was linked to the fact that the website was not mobile friendly.
However, it’s important to note that while Google Mobilegeddon had an impact, it was not as destructive as many experts initially predicted. A report from RKG Merkle found that 46 percent of Fortune 500 companies and 29 percent of the top 500 retail sites were not mobile-friendly prior to Mobilegeddon, suggesting a potential for significant impact. However, subsequent studies found that the overall impact of Mobilegeddon was less severe than expected with only 4.7 percent of websites being affected according to TechCrunch report.
Despite the fears, Google’s Mobilegeddon update ultimately served as a wake-up call for many businesses to update their websites to be mobile-friendly, improving user experience.
Therefore, it is important to keep up with the latest digital trends and continue to optimize websites for various devices, especially mobiles, to ensure the best possibilities of maintaining high SERP rankings and visibility.
Sources:
- Google Webmaster Central Blog, February 26, 2015. “Finding more mobile-friendly search results”.
- Searchmetrics, April 27, 2015. “First Data on Google Mobile Update: Winners & Losers”
- TechCrunch, April 21, 2015. “Google’s “Mobile-Friendly” Update Could Impact Over 40% Of Fortune 500 Websites”.
- RKG Merkle Digital Marketing Report Q2 2015. “Survey of the Impact of Google’s New Mobile Friendly Rules”.
