Google Rolls Out Mobile Friendly Usability and App Indexing Factors

In case you still wonder about the relevancy of a mobile strategy, the search giant Google just announced two major changes to its search algorithm for ranking mobile sites. These factors will be rolled into mobile search results starting April 21, 2015.

Here’s what’s coming:

1. Mobile friendly sites to rank better on mobile search results

In a major algorithmic change impacting mobile search results across all languages, Google will now label mobile friendly sites and determine if websites should rank on top of search. The intent is to provide users with the best possible and most relevant search results. Google advises businesses to make their sites mobile-friendly.

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Check out Google’s guidelines for mobile sites.

2. Google indexed mobile apps get prominence on mobile search

App indexing enables apps to rank on Google web search results just like websites. This will apply to Android apps and will work for signed-in users using the app. Content from indexed apps and deep links will begin surfacing on search results.

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The major implications of this update for businesses are, 1. have mobile-friendly sites in the first place, and 2. develop user-friendly apps – all of which helps businesses better align with the mobile audience.

Here at Position² we recommend that clients:

• Start with a Mobile-friendly test
• Adopt Responsive Site design – a single URL to access the site across all devices only needs a single Googlebot user agent to crawl rather than multiple user agents
• Deploy app store optimization techniques to get the highest visibility for apps

Be sure to check out our Website & App services

Time to Go Mobile!