Did Google Really Start Rolling Out The Mobile Friendly Algorithm Yesterday?

Has Google really rolled out the mobile friendly update? As of now, very few signs say so but it might have just started about an hour ago.

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Yesterday morning, Google announced that the Mobile Friendly Update began rolling out but based on all the metrics from large data companies such as Search Metrics and SEO Clarity, as well as trolling the webmaster forums, I have not seen any evidence of a change at all yesterday.

Google did say it can take up to a week or so for the roll out to be completed, so you might not see the mobile search results change much that day but you will over time.

Last night, Marcus Tober from Search Metrics wrote that based on his massive data set he was unable, at least last night, to “see any bigger movements or winners/losers yet.” Ryan Heuser from SEOClarity had a similar conclusion last night from his data analysis saying “The data says: No. There is no significant change” in the mobile search results.

However, I personally am following a handful of queries and I noticed that around 9am EDT this morning all of those queries changed when reviewing them on my iPhone. I shared one example of Moz dropping from position one to position two, since Moz is not a mobile friendly site currently.

google-mobile-algo-live-1429707928

Very few webmasters are noticing any changes yet, even after asking them on Twitter. But with most Google rollouts, they can be seen by some searchers before others.

I’ve asked both Search Metrics and SEO Clarity to rerun their data, I should have those results soon. Marcus Tober from Search Metrics said that based on this mornings “first results” there are “some slight changes” in the mobile search results but he added they are “nothing big” yet. Both Search Metrics and SEO Clarity need more time to analyze their data this morning and as soon as I get the results, I will share them.

Have you seen significant changes in the mobile search results? Let us know what you see in the comments. We are expecting pretty significant changes in the mobile search results when this goes live.

Postscript: SEO Clarity’s Ryan Heuser sent me some early data at 1:45pm EDT saying as of this morning they are now seeing “1.7% difference in ranking domains between desktop and mobile versus the previous few days.” He said the big winners thus far are sites like Wikipedia that are mobile friendly, you can see their jump in visibility in the mobile results in the chart below.

top competitor trend wikipedia

Here is the chart showing the difference between desktop and mobile Google search results from SEO Clarity:

desktop vs mobile rank comparison pt 2

Also, Pete Meyers updated the Moz Blog with data from their tracking tools.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

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