{"id":548,"date":"2015-04-24T10:30:51","date_gmt":"2015-04-24T09:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/?p=548"},"modified":"2015-04-29T17:24:05","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T16:24:05","slug":"do-you-need-to-worry-about-googles-mobile-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/2015\/04\/24\/do-you-need-to-worry-about-googles-mobile-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Do you need to worry about Google\u2019s mobile update?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On 21 April Google launched a new search algorithm that includes mobile friendliness as a ranking factor in search results. This week we\u2019ve received a number of queries about the update and what affect it will have on how our sites perform in searches.<\/p>\n<h2>What we know about Google&#8217;s mobile update<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It only impacts mobile search results<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s likely to take a week to roll out (and for us to see what the impact is)<\/li>\n<li>It\u2019s a live algorithm, so if a page becomes mobile friendly after 21 April it won\u2019t take long for this to be shown in the results, with the mobile-friendly tag<\/li>\n<li>Mobile friendliness is just one element of a complex ranking algorithm<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We (the team, industry experts, perhaps even Google) don\u2019t yet know exactly what the impact of these changes is going to be. All the sensible, non-scaremongering experts out there are saying \u2013 don\u2019t panic. And we\u2019re inclined to agree with them.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cthis is just one of over 200 signals we use to evaluate the best results. Non-mobile-friendly sites won\u2019t disappear from mobile Search results\u2014they may still rank high if they hold great content the user wants\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cody Kwok on <a href=\"http:\/\/insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk\/2015\/04\/ranking-change-to-help-you-find-mobile_21.html\">Google\u2019s Inside Search blog<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As this quote from one of Google\u2019s principle software engineers makes clear \u2013 mobile friendliness is not the only thing you\u2019ll be ranked on, sites that already perform well will continue to do so and the key is to provide the content that meets your users\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n<h2>Making our site mobile<\/h2>\n<p>The good news is a number of key areas of our website are already mobile friendly, eg Clearing, Open Day, Postgraduate and Research Impact. By tracking usage of these we&#8217;ve learnt valuable lessons about what works for our users and for Google.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve also prioritised transforming the parts of our site that receive high traffic and are most visible to Google (including the University homepage, Undergraduate and About). These sites are all in the first 20 to go through our <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/2015\/03\/06\/introduction-to-go-mobile\/\">Go Mobile programme<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll be monitoring mobile search results for a sample of our site over the next few weeks and will respond to any changes we observe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 21 April Google launched a new search algorithm that includes mobile friendliness as a ranking factor in search results. This week we\u2019ve received a number of queries about the update and what affect it will have on how our &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/2015\/04\/24\/do-you-need-to-worry-about-googles-mobile-update\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":755,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,18],"tags":[65,29,64],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-go-mobile","category-search","tag-mobile","tag-responsive-design","tag-search-results"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/755"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":567,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions\/567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}