Google’s mobile-friendly algorithm boost has rolled out

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Google has fully rolled out the second version of the mobile-friendly update today. Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller announced it this morning on Twitter, saying, “The mobile changes mentioned here are now fully rolled out.”

Google gave us a heads-up in March that they are preparing to boost the mobile-friendly algorithm in May, and clearly, that has finished rolling out today.

This technically is supposed to “increase the effect of the [mobile-friendly] ranking signal.” As we reported in March, Google said if you are already mobile-friendly, you do not have to worry, because “you will not be impacted by this update.”

As a reminder, the Google mobile-friendly algorithm is a page-by-page signal, so it can take time for Google to assess each page, and that is why it took some time to roll out fully. So depending on how fast Google crawls and indexes all of the pages on your site, the impact can be slow to show up.

One webmaster asked if this is “mobilegeddon 2,” and John Mueller responded, “No, not really.”

@tyron_love No, not really. :)

— John Mueller (@JohnMu) May 12, 2016

You may have seen ranking and traffic changes from Google’s mobile search results to your site this week due to this update.

If you are not mobile-friendly, or if you want to ensure that you are, check the Google mobile-friendly tool, and check Google’s mobile guidelines. It is never too late to benefit from this mobile-friendly algorithm; it is real-time based on how fast Google crawls your pages.

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.