Mobile friendly – Google will be testing websites on their mobile capabilities

It was only a matter of time: Google has announced to test websites on their mobile compatibility and to use these results for placing the sites in the search results. This will start April 21st according to the following statement:

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. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices. (Quelle)

If you take a look at some statistics about internet usage from the recent years, this seems reasonable. The Federal Statistics Office showed in a press release from december 2014 that the number of internet users, who also use it on mobile devices, has risen by 63% in the last year.Compared to 2013 this is a growth of 12 percentage points. In the age group 16-24 the usage is even higher at 90%. ( Source )

This should be an incentive to all website-administrators to take a good look on how their pages are shown on mobile devices as this will play a growing role in the future. The placement on search results is only one side, the legibility and usability as well as the speed are signifikant factors, too.

Google does not just give an ultimatum, they provide a test to check if your website complies with their rules of ‘mobile friendly’, at least on a technical base: Mobile Friendly.

What if your site is not optimized for mobile devices? Doing it on your own is not that hard, you can follow the advice here: First steps to mobile friendly websites , or you could hire someone to do it for you.

(If you don’t have a webmaster at hand, we can offer consultation! Just send an e-mail to sebastianp@twisted-artwork.de!)