How Has Google's Mobile Friendly Update Affected Websites?

Last
week,
Google
started
rolling
out a new mobile friendly
update to its mobile search
algorithm. This was aimed at
significantly changing the
mobile search results to give
preference to mobile ready
web sites over non mobile
ready ones. Experts jokingly
termed it 'Mobilegeddon',
because all signs indicated
that it is a major change in
many years, and will
significantly impact websites.
But a week after the launch,
has it really been such a
significant update?
Thus far, the algorithm
doesn't seem to have had as
big of an impact as we
expected.
Google confirmed in the
Webmaster Central blog that
the roll out began on
Tuesday, April 21st. Some
experts started seeing a
difference as early as the
22nd. Some websites such as
SEJ even published a list of
top winners and losers from
this mobile friendly update.





However, in many cases,
these changes were merely
slight disturbances, and not
very significant shifts. Several
SEO metric companies such
as Searchmetrics are
tracking the update and for
the most part, they are not
seeing huge shifts in the
Google mobile ranking
algorithm just yet.
This is not to say that
websites haven't been
affected. Quite the contrary.
Some websites certainly
seem to be losing and some
taking advantage. But
compared to overall search
volume for major keywords,
the change isn't huge.
However, Google has said
that the roll out can last a
week more yet. So maybe we
just need to wait a little
longer.
According to Moz, "so far, the
big day was April 22nd, and it
wasn't that big." Peter
Meyers from Moz has been
tracking mobile search
results rankings for a set of
top keywords, and according
to him, the punch of the
update hasn't fallen, not as
yet anyway.





Credits: Moz Blog
Some experts reckon that
Mobilegeddon is here.
According to Searchmetrics,
'visible trends can be seen in
the new data'. But for the
most part, the webmaster
community hasn’t been too
impressed with the level of
significance in the mobile
results. Ryan Heuser from
seoClarity noted a variance
of only 5.1% in Google mobile
search results.
This means that most are not
noticing significant changes
to the mobile search rankings
yet. Again, that might change
over the course of the next
week. With that said, there is
still time to make your site
mobile friendly