Mobilegeddon Cometh: New Google “Mobile Friendly Update” To Reward Sites Beginning April 21

Google announced it is making two significant changes to its search algorithm for ranking the mobile search results.

Google will be using mobile-friendly factors in its mobile search results starting on April 21, 2015, and it will rank mobile apps participating in App Indexing for signed-in users better in the mobile search results starting today.

Mobile-Friendly Web Sites To Rank Better In Mobile Search

Google said that on April 21, 2015, Google’s mobile ranking factors will not only label your site as mobile-friendly, but will also use that to determine if your site should rank higher in the search results. Google said this algorithmic change will have a “significant impact” in the mobile search results, impacting all languages worldwide.

Google said this is expanding on its mobile ranking demotion algorithm launched back in 2013.

Google also said “users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”

Why not now? Google said it wants sites to prepare; so, you have a few months to get your websites mobile-friendly. Google told us it had been experimenting with mobile ranking factors recently, and now it is here.

To prepare, you can use Google’s mobile usability reports and the mobile friendly testing tool. You can also see Google’s mobile guidelines.

Mobile Apps That Google Indexes To Rank Better In Mobile Search

Google further said that starting right now, apps that are indexed by Google through App Indexing will begin to rank better in mobile search. Google said this only will work for signed-in users who have the app installed on their mobile devices, which means only Android apps today. Google explained this “may now surface content from indexed apps more prominently in search.”

To learn more about how to get your apps indexed by Google, see this help area. To keep up with the latest tips and advice since this article was written, see our What Is Mobilegeddon & The Google Mobile Friendly Update page.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics.