In the days following the update, everyone in the industry began to slowly breathe a sigh of relief and analyze how their sites were performing a week after the rollout. After the dust settled, it seemed like the answer to questions about the update’s impact was a “meh” and a shrug.
Experts say the update overall had the intended effect. Pages that were not mobile-friendly were negatively impacted in mobile searches and began to drop in the SERPs .
Colin Guidi of 3Q digital also has an interesting japan phone number analysis that suggests site speed and loading time have a greater impact on rankings than mobile-friendliness:
“Accessing these sites through mobile browsers and slower processors shows that page speed and load time appear to be a more important ranking factor than this new mobile-friendly update. With responsive sites, you have a heavier code base and may inherently have slower load times but still pass Google’s mobile-friendly test. Responsive sites are mobile-friendly but still rank lower than non-mobile-friendly sites, so their TTFB (time to first byte) should be looked at.”
This was an interesting point at the time, as page speed and load time were just beginning to enter mainstream discussion as major ranking factors. This could have been the beginning of a shift in perception, where a faster experience equals better results. You wonder if Google included this as part of this update, but there’s no data to support that theory.
These analyses, and many others, confirm what most people have seen: traffic and rankings have not been significantly impacted.
Overall, this left a lot of search marketers confused, as most didn’t see a measurable impact. Sure, there were a few exceptions who were devastated and called Google’s name on message boards. However, overall, the update didn’t result in a huge shift in rankings overall, which, in retrospect, was probably what Google wanted all along.
This is one of the first updates where Google fully explains to people what is happening, when it is happening, and how long it will take to roll out.
While the purpose of this update was certainly to push people toward mobile-friendly apps, it was more likely also a test to see how they could affect change by giving people actionable information before the update went live, in order to minimize the fallout and complaints that would follow.
Google is giving people time to make changes and create some form of mobile-friendly version of the page, which will lead to a better user experience for users and less issues for the search community.
No one is complaining because nothing really happened. It wasn’t the mobile apocalypse, more like a mobile speed bump, but for the most part, everyone got through it just fine.
As time goes by, more and more websites become mobile-friendly, resulting in a better web experience for users and, overall, not just those in the industry, but for everyone around the world.
Google has used this update as a delivery mechanism for a larger plan to get a large number of websites to change their design and view of the web in a short period of time.
How do they get people to do this?
Google pulled out their biggest bait to get people interested — improved rankings — and they announced it in that February blog post and sent everyone after it.
The effect is very good.
It’s good that Google recognized the changes that were coming to the industry and helped move people in that direction. While Mobilegeddon didn’t have a huge impact on rankings and traffic, it did have an impact on user experience and culture that benefited everyone.
Mobilegeddon 2.0
About a year later, on March 16, 2016, Google announced that they would be strengthening their mobile-friendly ranking signals in early May and providing a stronger ranking boost to those who complied.
The official Google post begins very similarly to the original post:
“Getting high-quality, relevant answers when searching shouldn’t depend on the device you’re using. You should get the best answers whether you’re on a phone, desktop, or tablet. Last year, we began using mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal for mobile search. Today we’re announcing that starting in May, we’ll begin updating mobile search results to strengthen our ranking signals and help our users find more relevant, mobile-friendly pages.”
Google is redoubling its efforts to rank mobile-friendly pages.
On May 12, John Mueller announced on Twitter: "The mobile changes mentioned here are now generally available." In addition, if you are already used to using a mobile device, "you will not be affected by this update."
When asked if this was Mobilegeddon 2, John replied: "No, not really."
The rollout of the second iteration is interesting in some ways.
When you think about it and see how strongly people reacted to each Panda and Penguin update (some for good reason), you'd be surprised at how muted the industry's reaction was to these two updates.
There are threads where people are discussing, arguing and complaining about the update, but the reaction isn't as angry. It's a calmer kind of chaos - a stark contrast to the Armageddon (see what I did there?) that usually ensue.
This was the first time I saw adults not throwing tantrums on message boards, but asking questions and sharing knowledge about what worked and what didn’t work in their mobile experiences.
This can be attributed to Google giving people enough time to prepare and clearly indicating what, when, and how the updates will be updated. Another benefit of these updates is that their effects come in the form of a yes/no response, which is absent in almost all other updates, making it easier for people to recognize and adapt to the changes.
All in all, this is a positive step for Google and the search industry.
The significance of the mobile doomsday algorithm
Finally, Google has proven and learned that this update can achieve the following functions:
They can implement changes beyond traffic and rankings and get people to change the way they design their sites to suit the market.
Not every algorithm update is confusing.
When you give people enough time to prepare and understand the changes that are coming, you avoid causing unrest.
The first and third points on the list are two of the most important. This update is a major step forward for Google, both in the way they communicate with the industry and in the types of change they can affect.
This has probably been Google’s smoothest and most successful rollout of an algorithm update so far.
What's next?
Google’s mobile-friendly update set the stage for all other tweaks and updates to mobile SERPs. It solved the problem of getting people to invest money into their sites to make them mobile-friendly and set the tone for how our industry would evolve:
If you are not mobile friendly, you will not be allowed to hang around here anymore.
Looking ahead, this is a precursor to Google’s upcoming mobile-first indexing initiative, which will be rolled out globally, and will solidify the mobile experience.
While the impact of this update may be small in the traditional sense, it is one of the most important milestones in the history of Google’s algorithm to date.