Google is set to make a revolutionary change to its search results tomorrow which the company says will favor so called “Mobile-Friendly” websites. Not everyone, of course, is happy with this.
In case you were wondering why Google is so important to any business today, Forbes reports that as of January 15, 2015, the company gets 88% of all web searches conducted worldwide and that it nearly tripled its revenues from $2.2 billion in 2012 to $6.3 billion in 2014.
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As was explained by Google when it first announced the change back in February, the idea is to make it easier for people who use mostly mobile devices find mobile friendly sites. This will be done with the aid of a new algorithm.
The company stated, “As more people use mobile devices to access the internet, our algorithms have to adapt to these usage patterns. In the past, we’ve made updates to ensure a site is configured properly and viewable on modern devices. We’ve made it easier for users to find mobile-friendly web pages and we’ve introduced App Indexing to surface useful content from apps. “
So Google will add both more mobile friendly results and more app friendly results to searches.
If you are worried that your website may not meet Google’s new standards and fall out of web searches, do not fear, Google is offering tools to developers to be able to make websites more mobile friendly.
Just enter your website address here and Google will tell you if it is mobile friendly.
But there are already complaints about it and the changes have not even gone into effect yet.
Itai Sadan, CEO of Israeli website-building service Duda, told AP, “Some sites are going to be in for a big surprise when they find a drastic change in the amount of people visiting them from mobile devices.”
The BBC has reported that sites owned by the European Union, Wikipedia and itself currently fail to pass Google’s own Mobile Friendly Test developer tool.
