Tomorrow on Tuesday, April 21, once again there will be updated the Google search algorithm. This time changes relate to how to display on mobile devices and the quality of search results on mobile devices. According to Zineb Ait Bahaji, a member of the Google Webmaster Trends team, changes that will come into force on 21.04 will be more significant for the results than the previous updates of the most popular browser – Panda and Penguin.
Mobile-friendly update refers only to search results on mobile devices. The change is intended to eliminate presented in the search engine results pages unsuitable for display on the used devices. Google will most likely not eliminate completely the websites unadjusted for viewing on mobile devices. Google tends to indicate the most important sites in terms of a searcher, yet the position of the websites built in accordance with the Google recommendations can get improved. Lack of a mobile version should not affect in any way the search results on desktops and laptops.
To check whether a website is ready for an update algorithm, you need to perform a test on the website:
google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly by entering the website’s address which should be audited. If a test result indicates that the website does not comply with Google, the following steps should be implemented in order to temporarily adjust the site to the new standards:
a) Allowing access of Google’s robots to CSS, JS and graphics in the robots.txt file;
b) Declining outdated technologies, such as Adobe Flash;
c) Avoiding small fonts, small buttons, illegible components;
It is recommended to build websites in the RWD technology (Responsive Web Design), enabling serving the same source code for all the equipment and adequate rendering of the layout in order to adjust it to the size of the display.