You can hear the fear in your clients voice, or in the tone of their emails. You can tell they\u2019re clearly concerned and wondering if they should run to the local Costco to store up on all the bottled water and duct tape they can fit onto a family sized push cart. \u201cTell me about this mobile…geddon?\u201d they say as they try to steady their voice and project an air of concerned confidence.<\/p>\n
This is the scene that much of the blogosphere has been painting mere days after the launch of Google\u2019s latest mobile algorithm (dubbed \u201cmobilegeddon\u201d) – buildings are still standing, the oceans haven\u2019t turned to blood, and \u00a0human society hasn\u2019t devolved into a lawless, Mad Max-style wasteland. Why is this? Because the mobile algorithm change simply wasn\u2019t that big … and it was never intended to be, either.<\/p>\n
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The algorithm update was only ever going to affect mobile search results. It has no effect on desktop search results. Admittedly, mobile search has become a bigger part of Google\u2019s business, so much so that Matt Cutts predicted that mobile searches would surpass desktop searches in 2014<\/a>\u00a0(Sorry, Matt, you were at least a year early<\/a>). This may seem significant but this will differ depending on your company and industry. I\u2019ve seen some sites receive 70-80% of their traffic from mobile while I\u2019ve seen others with 5%. The impact is going to vary depending on your business and industry.<\/p>\n Whether you get a large portion of your traffic from mobile or desktop, branded searches most likely won\u2019t be affected. John Mueller, Google\u2019s heir-apparent spokesperson to Matt Cutts, stated in a Gchat conference discussion<\/a>\u00a0that \u201c…it\u2019s something where I\u2019d say there is no effect at all on branded queries\u2026\u201d. While there is certainly more to the quote, John goes on to say that this algorithm is likely one where they will \u201cdemote the sites a little bit\u201d for not being mobile optimized but they will still be the most relevant result for branded terms.<\/p>\n So if you\u2019re not mobile optimized, you will likely only lose non-branded traffic.<\/p>\n “The mobile algorithm change simply wasn\u2019t that big … and it was never intended to be, either.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I realize the more valuable keywords are the non-branded keywords; that these represent users who were not previously aware of your business. At this point though, you\u2019re looking at a \u201cslight demotion\u201d to a portion of your mobile traffic (depending on how much of your traffic comes from branded search terms.)<\/p>\n Despite the recent uproar and the moniker \u201cmobilegeddon\u201d this algorithm change won\u2019t have much of an impact on many sites, at least not one deserving this type of hysteria. Don\u2019t mistake my message as an excuse to not create a mobile optimized site though. Google has been very clear in the recent past that they will be focusing on mobile and this algorithm is definitive proof of how serious they really are. Mobilegeddon isn\u2019t the end though, and it certainly wasn\u2019t the beginning.