Mobilegeddon encourages publishers to fast-track mobile optimisation

Following on swiftly from Cookie Armageddon, publishers have another recent development to be wary of. Last Tuesday, Google once more modified its search algorithm, this time to give preference to sites which were deemed to be more ’Mobile-Friendly’. The new changes favour mobile-optimised sites, such that they will now appear higher up the search results rankings. By contrast, sites which are not mobile-friendly - will drop down the leaderboard.

Affino has long held to a mobile-first approach to digital business and this very much supports that direction. There’s already been reports that some of the bigger publishers have been affected by the new changes, particularly Reddit. Google has produced its own ’Mobile-Friendly Test Tool’ - where you can enter your site URL to see how Google rates it.

Responsive-design websites have been increasingly prevalent of late, and no doubt this will further accelerate the adoption of that format. I don’t believe any publisher can ignore this paradigm shift, as not reacting to it will undoubtedly impact on business. Google is still by far and away the most dominant search engine, and most publishing companies are to a degree reliant on attracting traffic from and via Google.

There’s also an obvious first-mover advantage in this where the properly optimised mobile-friendly sites can win over some of the high-ground previously held by seemingly unassailable publishing giants. This partial reset on proceedings allows formerly lesser competitors to get a bigger slice of search engine traffic ...