Starting April 21, Google will use mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal, impacting mobile searches globally. Each page will be assessed individually for mobile usability without affecting the entire site’s ranking, and real-time assessments will be conducted during crawls. Websites must ensure features like responsive viewport and the absence of Flash for better mobile compatibility, as failure to comply might lead to significant traffic loss.

1. "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 in our search
results."
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2015/02/finding-more-mobile-friendly-search.html

2. Mobile is for mobile devices… not just cell phones!

3. Unknown
Consequences:
Will lack of mobile usability result in complete
removal from mobile search results, or simply a
suppression?

4. What do we know?
Worldwide
Will impact all searches globally
Takeaway: Google is confident in expected results.

5. What do we know?
Page By Page
Each page of the site will be judged separately
Takeaway: One poorly optimized section won’t
cause rankings for your whole site to tank

6. What do we know?
Mobile Searches
Only impacts mobile searches
(queries from a mobile device)
Takeaway: You can prioritize / isolate your focus toward those pages
where mobile search traffic is most important.

7. What do we know?
Real Time
Mobile friendliness is determined during crawl
Takeaway: If negatively impacted, once you fix the
issue you can recover without waiting for an update

8. Unknown
How Mobile Friendly:
Are there varying degrees of mobile
friendliness, or is it all-or-nothing?

9. Is my site mobile friendly?
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights
What does Google say?

10. Criteria Judged
Criteria Judged
Flash Usage – Does the content of the page use flash
elements for displaying content or navigation?
Should be a no!!
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6101188

11. Is my site mobile friendly?
Check for Flash
Method 1:
http://24hoursofhappy.com
Using Chrome go to task
manager and load page. You will
see the flash plugin load…
Method 2:
https://vimeo.com/47875656
View source and search for .swf

12. But… I really need flash!!
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/?url=24hoursofhappy.com
Make placeholder content for
flash that only appears for
mobile devices . You can do
this with CSS

13. Criteria Judged
Viewport Defined and Responsive – Allows page
width to be determined by the width of the
device, set initial “zoom”, etc.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6101188
Criteria Judged

14. Is my site mobile friendly?
Check for Viewport Settings
http://angular.marketing
View source… look for <meta name=“viewport” content=“width=device-width”
Do not want to see a fixed width, as it looks funny across devices
<meta name=“viewport” content=“width=320px” />
Horizontal scrolling on mobile = BAD BAD BAD

15. Criteria Judged
Small font size, Touch elements too close
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6101188
Criteria Judged

16. Is my site mobile friendly?
http://www.responsinator.com/?url=angular.marketing
Another Quick Check Method

17. Is my site mobile friendly?
In Chrome: Right Click –> Inspect Element
Tab now gives options for determining device and size
Don’t forget to refresh!!
Another Quick Check Method

18. Is my site mobile friendly?
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-usability
What does Google Webmaster Tools Say?
Check for messages in Google Webmaster Tools
Also check Search Traffic -> Mobile Usability

19. m.MyDomain.com vs. Responsive
Please don’t do this unless absolutely
necessary
If you HAVE to do sub.domains instead of a
responsive site, you MUST have a
rel=“alternate” on the desktop site and
rel=“canonical” on the mobile site
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/mobile-
seo/configurations/separate-urls

20. Should I Care?
https://www.google.com/analytics
Audience -> Mobile
How much traffic are you willing to lose? 10%, 30%...
You might be surprised how much organic traffic you get from mobile!