Study: Non-Mobile-Friendly Sites Disappearing From Top Google Results

Remarkably, there are many brands and companies that still don’t have mobile-friendly sites. According to a new study from Moovweb, there are clear visibility and ranking consequences, in addition to usability consequences. April 21 was the formal date when Google’s Mobile-Friendly Algorithm kicked in. Since then, Moovweb has tracked “1,000 important e-commerce keywords in a […]

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Remarkably, there are many brands and companies that still don’t have mobile-friendly sites. According to a new study from Moovweb, there are clear visibility and ranking consequences, in addition to usability consequences.

April 21 was the formal date when Google’s Mobile-Friendly Algorithm kicked in. Since then, Moovweb has tracked “1,000 important e-commerce keywords in a range of industries” to see whether and how it has affected mobile rankings on Google.

Mobile Friendly Rankings Mooveweb

The company found that 83 percent of the the time, the top result was mobile-friendly, and 81 percent of the time, the top three results were. On page one of the Google mobile SERP, 77 percent of results (or 7.7 out of 10) were mobile-friendly.

These findings immediately raise the question: When and why is Google serving non-mobile-friendly results in that remaining 20+ percent of cases?

Study: Non-Mobile-Friendly Sites Disappearing From Google Mobile Search Results

Moovweb’s chart above shows the percentage of mobile-friendly sites in each of the top 10 positions across the 1,000 keywords tested.

The company found that mobile-friendliness varied by vertical. The chart below indicates some industries were more mobile-ready than others. Of seven categories examined, retail had the most mobile-friendly results and transportation the lowest percentage of mobile-friendly results — for the examined keywords.

Study: Non-Mobile-Friendly Sites Disappearing From Google Mobile Search Results

While there has been some dispute and apparent variation in the impact of Mobilegeddon on different market segments, it’s beyond question that non-mobile-friendly sites in general are being negatively affected.

The obvious next step for marketers whose sites aren’t mobile-ready is to update them pronto. But the larger objective is not simply to comply with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Algorithm but to provide an experience that rewards smartphone searchers and advances the broader business interests of the company among mobile users.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Greg Sterling
Contributor
Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land, a member of the programming team for SMX events and the VP, Market Insights at Uberall.

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