Australian retailers who do not have mobile enabled web sites face being penalised by Google as of today.
A survey by ChannelNews reveals that several major appliance, hardware and consumer electronic retailers are facing somer serious issues due in part to a lack of investment in their online operations which are basically HTML pages linked to a third party transactiopn engine, several failed the Google Mobile Test.
Three major retailer websites that are optomised for mobile are JB Hi Fi, Dick Smith and Harvey Norman.
The update to the Google search algorithm will penalise websites that have not been optimised for viewing on mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets.
First announced in February, Google said that the algorithm change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact on its search results.
“As people increasingly search on their mobile devices, we want to make sure they can find content that’s not only relevant and timely, but also easy to read and interact with on smaller mobile screens,” a Google spokesperson said.
“Starting April 21, we’ll use a web page’s ‘mobile-friendliness’ as one of many factors to help rank searches done on mobile devices.”
Google has been offering resources for webmasters to test their mobile sites and tools to make their pages more mobile-friendly since February. Companies and individuals can check whether their website is classed as mobile-friendly by entering the web address here.
However, some webmasters have still been caught caught short.
“Google’s upcoming ‘mobile friendly’ algorithm update – the so-called Mobilegeddon – is another indication of how important mobile search is and will be this year,” said Maria Mitsostergiou, head of search at Somo.
“The incorporation of ‘mobile friendliness’ as a ranking signal for websites will separate companies proactively opting-into mobile versus those that cannot see the benefit and power of their mobile presence on search engine results pages.”
Adults in Australia will spend more time on mobile devices than desktop computers in 2015, according to research from eMarketer, spending an average of 2 hours 26 minutes a day on mobile devices compared to 2 hours 13 minutes on a desktop.
The company also predicts that mobile search will surpass desktop in 2015, with the majority of ad spend, organic traffic and paid clicks coming from smartphones and tablets.
