Page 10 - index

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Will Google's mobile-friendly search

bury your mobile-unfriendly sites?

most popular uses of a smartphone, as it is the starting
Both privately and professionally, mobile devices are
well positioned in our daily lives by now - be it for com- point of many excursions into the vastness of the Inter-
munications, information or transactions. The mobile net. Besides, the smartphone is not only used when on
use of the Internet reflects more than ever what we do, the go, but also when sitting on the couch – always
besides supporting us in our everyday lives and digitiz- ready to go to search and retrieve information.
ing many areas of our lives without saying. In fact, we
find the whole Internet world in our pocket at all times. What cannot be found, does not exist
To no surprise, the five most popular Internet uses on
the mobile phone are email correspondence, online But not only statistical numbers have long been reason
shopping, world news and search engine queries, ac- enough for being found digitally. Starting this month,
cording to various studies. Google delivers search engine results from websites on
mobile devices only if their presentation qualities meet
Considering this, you are most probably wondering mobile standards. Many websites and shop owners risk
what Google’s change of its search results for to lose not only website visits and online sales, but
smartphones will bring, as it will affect your marketing have to consider the phrase that will be sustainably
efforts enormously. Especially, since search has tipped strengthened: "What Google does not find, does not
from being desktop-first to mobile-first, with the majority exist or is not important enough". Indeed, people who
of consumers and business customers using are already used to accumulated knowledge and con-
smartphones and tablets now. Now on April 21, Google tent of the entire world on their mobile helper, anytime
introduced its new ranking algorithm that identifies a and anywhere, can come to this conclusion even faster
site’s mobile-friendliness and places it higher in search and above all more lasting.
results. As you can imagine, Google's update could hurt
brands and companies badly if deemed mobile- What exactly will change?
unfriendly. What Google wants to achieve is pushing
shop and website operators towards the mobile path by With the Google "mobile-friendly'-update, signals that
forcing them to focus on a "mobile-friendly" web pres- indicate an optimization for mobile devices are evaluat-
ence to keep up with consumers’ demands and not to ed positively as a ranking factor for mobile search que-
be left behind. ries. Conversely, non-optimized content of a URL is
significantly devalued, especially since Google creates
Search is one of the main activities on a no separate search index for mobile users. In the fu-
smartphone ture, search engine results depend, therefore, heavily
on whether the end device used for searching is able to
When asked what they consider being the main func- display the found website correctly. If the page is not
tions of a smartphone, 78.3% of respondents say optimized for mobile devices, it probably is not listed at
search via search engine, placing the Internet search in all or only on the hindmost seats.◊
second place right behind the phone feature with 79.9%
of the main functions of a smartphone. Therefore, it can By Daniela La Marca

be assumed that the information search is one of the
10 Asian eMarketing April 2015 - Social Media