Mobilegeddon

From HandWiki

Mobilegeddon is a name for Google's search engine algorithm update of April 21, 2015.[1] The term was coined by Chuck Price in a post written for Search Engine Watch on March 9, 2015. The term was then adopted by webmasters and web-developers. The main effect of this update was to give priority to websites that display well on smartphones and other mobile devices. The change did not affect searches made from a desktop computer or a laptop.[2]

Google announced its intention to make the change in February 2015.[3] In addition to their announcement, Google published an article, "Mobile Friendly Sites," on their Google Developers page to help webmasters with the transition.[4] Google claims the transition to mobile-friendly sites was to improve user experience, stating "the desktop version of a site might be difficult to view and use on a mobile device."[4]

The protologism is a blend word of "mobile" and "Armageddon" because the change "could cause massive disruption to page rankings."[5] But, writing for Forbes , Robert Hof says that concerns about the change were "overblown" in part because "Google is providing a test to see if sites look good on smartphones".[6]

Search engine results pages on smartphones now show URLs in "breadcrumb" format, as opposed to the previous explicit format.[7]

Impact

Based on their data set, software company Searchmetrics found that the average loss of rankings for the non-mobile friendly sites measured was 0.21 positions on average.[8] Content marketing company BrightEdge has tracked over 20,000 URLs since the update, and is reporting a 21% decrease in non-mobile-friendly URLs on the first 3 pages of search results.[9] According to Peter J. Meyers, it was "nothing to write home about."[10]

See also

References

  1. "Rolling out the mobile-friendly update" (in en-US). Official Google Webmaster Central Blog. https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2015/04/rolling-out-mobile-friendly-update.html. 
  2. "Google's New Search Algorithm Stokes Fears Of 'Mobilegeddon'" (in en). NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2015/04/21/401269739/googles-new-search-algorithm-stokes-fears-of-mobilegeddon. 
  3. Cellan-Jones, Rory (2015-04-21). "Google’s 'mobilegeddon'" (in en-GB). BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32393050. 
  4. 4.0 4.1 "Welcome! | Search" (in en). https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/. 
  5. Curtis, Sophie (2015-04-20). "Google search overhaul could spark 'Mobilegeddon'" (in en-GB). ISSN 0307-1235. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/11549615/Google-search-overhaul-could-cause-Mobilegeddon.html. 
  6. Hof, Robert. "Why Google's Mobilegeddon Isn't The End Of The World For Most Websites" (in en). Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2015/04/21/why-googles-mobilegeddon-isnt-the-end-of-the-world-for-most-websites/. 
  7. "Better presentation of URLs in search results" (in en-US). Official Google Webmaster Central Blog. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ca/2015/04/better-presentation-of-urls-in-search.html. 
  8. "Mobile Ranking Factors Study 2015" (in en-US). Searchmetrics. http://www.searchmetrics.com/mobile-ranking-factors/. 
  9. "Data Stats, Impact April 21 Google Mobile Algo Change" (in en-US). BrightEdge SEO Blog. 2015-04-28. http://www.brightedge.com/blog/non-mobile-friendly-share-of-serps-decreases-21-with-april-21-mobile-algorithm-change/. 
  10. "7 Days After Mobilegeddon: How Far Did the Sky Fall?" (in en-US). Moz. https://moz.com/blog/day-after-mobilegeddon.