‘Mobilegeddon’, Google’s ‘mobile-friendly’ algorithm hits several top sites

Google’s much-talked about, and dreaded, mobile-friendly algorithm- now christened ‘Mobilegeddon’ by the SEO community- started rolling out on April 21, 2015. Unlike some of the other major algorithm updates, this one did not show any significant swings in the immediate aftermath of its roll-out. However, close to a week after its roll-out, several search ranking and visibility tracking tools are reporting that traffic to some of the world’s largest sites have been hit hard with this update.

Mobillegeddon- mobile-friendly algorithmSearchMetrics lists some of the big winners and losers in the battle for visibility in the US following the mobilegeddon update. The prominent losers include the social site Reddit, Fool.com, NBCSports.com. One of the world’s leading SEO/ inbound marketing sites, Moz.com is also reported to have been affected by this update (not officially verified). An article on TFM&A insights indicates that Wikipedia and even the BBC may have taken a hit for not being mobile friendly.

India’s leading online retailer, Flipkart.com is likely to have been impacted by this update.

Mobilegeddon is one of the rare Google algorithm updates about which Google had given a strong heads-up back in February.

These are early days yet, and the dust is yet to be fully settled on this one. Over the next few months and weeks, we can expect to see mobile traffic to websites facing some flux. Marketers, especially targeting the consumer segment, can ill-afford to ignore the mobile search segment as part of their marketing mix, as search volume via mobile devices continues to rise. In fact, 2015 is touted to be the inflexion point where mobile search will overtake desktop search.

- The NetMarketer Editorial Team

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