Google Officially Launches “Mobile-Friendly” Labels In Mobile Search Results

After months and months of testing, Google has just officially launched the mobile-friendly label in the mobile search results.

In an effort to help mobile searchers know which sites they may click on are mobile-friendly versus which ones are not, Google has added a text label under the URL in the snippet that reads “Mobile-friendly” as the first part of the search result’s snippet. Google said it can be a “frustrating experience for our mobile searchers” to end up on a web page that is not mobile-friendly, thus they are adding the label to their mobile search results to communicate this to the searcher.

In addition to the mobile-friendly label, Google is experimenting with a new ranking algorithm for mobile friendly web sites.

Here is what the mobile-friendly label is officially launching with today, note, it may change in the future:

How do you qualify to show such a label for your web pages? Google said it depends on if GoogleBot detects the following criteria:

• Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash
• Uses text that is readable without zooming
• Sizes content to the screen so users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom
• Places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped

How does Google know how a user can experience your mobile site? Well, Google has been dropping hints that they understand mobile experience for some time now. They recently launched mobile usability reports to help webmasters find issues with their mobile web sites.

Google also recommends you test your site in the new Mobile-Friendly Test tool, review their mobile friendly guidelines and use various third-party tools to go mobile-friendly with your web site.

This new mobile-friendly label is now rolling out over the next few weeks.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz 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's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.