There’s no real way of knowing exactly what will happen with search rankings after a new Google update, but the upcoming Google mobile penalty is clearly going to have some drastic effects on non-mobile optimized web pages.

What is the Google Mobile Penalty?

Firstly, Google is set to make changes to the way it’s search engine ranks mobile optimized and non-mobile optimized websites on April 21st. At this point the whole internet could be a messy war zone. Fortunately, those who are keeping up with the times should not be affected. In fact, if you already have a mobile website you may even be affected positively by the upcoming Google update.

Here’s what Google has to say about their upcoming changes.

“Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.”

This basically means that having a well optimized website for mobile devices is going to increase your search rankings. It’s no longer going to be all about content in 2015 – having a well performing website that runs on a multitude of devices is key to having your site rank higher in Google search results.

What to Expect

We should expect that the new Google mobile penalty will penalize those websites that still don’t support mobile devices properly. We aren’t just talking about owning a mobile version of your site. You will need to meet a certain set of criteria to ensure your website is as mobile friendly as possible and won’t be penalized as a result.

Information provided by Google themselves lists details about what Google will be looking for. While Google doesn’t blatantly say what Google Spider will be crawling for, it’s clear that they are looking for websites that offer certain features. Your mobile website should include readable text without any need to zoom. Your page should be resized to fit the device, so responsive web design would work wonders here.

Google has provided a guide listing some of the things you should take into consideration when designing a mobile website. They have also created a mobile-friendly test that can help you to determine whether your websites are mobile friendly or not.

If you do not have a mobile friendly website or a mobile website at all, you should expect to see a drastic change in your search engine ranking. We are not sure how much of an impact it will make, but when Google suggest that not having a mobile website will have a “significant impact” you should be prepared for the absolute destruction of your hard SEO work if you don’t own a mobile friendly website.

Our Suggestion

We really suggest looking at getting a mobile website done before the changes take place to avoid any penalties. We provide a mobile development service that can create you an optimized website that fits into the criteria needed to avoid the Google mobile penalty. You can learn more about our services and what Boost One Mobile is about here.