A year on from ‘Mobilegeddon’ we look at how Google mobile search is continuing to evolve

You may remember reading about a big Google mobile search update back in April 2015 – dubbed ‘Mobilegeddon’ by the SEO community. We wrote about the update here at FutureLab and also had a look at the first results of Mobilegeddon and how some clients had come to us as a direct result of the mobile changes.

The ‘Mobilegeddon’ update last year was about prioritising mobile-responsive websites in mobile search results. So, from that point onward, if your website wasn’t mobile-responsive, you were going to lose rankings on mobile to a competitor who did have a mobile-ready website.

Mobile-first Design

At FutureLab, mobile-responsive design has been a priority for the last four years. We don’t charge extra for mobile-optimisation like some web companies – we simply don’t design a website these days unless it is responsive. When we meet with prospective clients, we’re sure to let them know that mobile-optimisation is really important. Sometimes we meet with mixed reactions – companies that aren’t bothered about mobile optimisation. A year ago when we told our clients and prospective ones about the update, we had companies saying they weren’t that fussed about optimising for mobile.

Mobile = important!

A year on from the update and it’s clear that mobile search is only gaining in importance, to Google and users alike. As Yoast’s Joost de Valk succinctly put it, “Whether mobile search is important, hugely important or incredibly important for your business depends on the market you’re in.” There’s no case for ignoring mobile traffic anymore, no matter if you’re a small company, based away from the big city, or rely on your business connections to bring in revenue.

Big change for Google search

The latest news from Google HQ is that desktop search and mobile search are going to become completely separated out from each other. The change will take place ‘within months’, according to Gary Illyes, a Google webmaster trends analyst. The mobile search will be rapidly updated, while the desktop search will be a secondary search which may not be as up to date as mobile search results.

Any business case for not investing in a mobile-responsive website is getting harder and harder to justify. The writing on the wall is quite clear – focus on optimising your website for mobile or pay the price of lower search rankings, less traffic and less visibility online.