Which sites will be affected? 

According to research from Somo, these are some of the sites that could be affected:

  • The official website of the British Monarchy
  • David Beckham’s official site
  • MI5
  • The Official Website for the European Union
  • The Scottish National Party
  • Nintendo
  • Windows Phone
  • Versace
  • Next
  • American Apparel
  • RyanAir
  • Channel 4 
  • P&O Cruises
  • RyanAir
  • Cotton Traders
  • Danone
  • Legal and General
  • The Daily Mail

Many of these companies have apps but no mobile sites, such as Next, but while this may be OK for customers, it won’t wash with Google. 

I’m surprised at any retailer which hasn’t figured out the need for a mobile friendly site by now, and it’s also strange that the Daily Mail hasn’t optimised for mobile. 

Some sites on the list, including American Apparel, do actually have mobile sites, but Google doesn’t judge them as mobile friendly. 

According to Maria Mitsostergiou, Head of Search at Somo:

This is down to the way a mobile site operates and gets customised based upon the various device screen widths. It is widely known that there are a lot of variations available, even if we consider the ‘standard’ resolutions currently used.

The cost of producing separate mobile versions according to each resolution is very high. Therefore, savvy advertisers tend to produce responsive web design sites to better control: (i) production costs; (ii) max-out the display of their site across different device sizes.  ​

As we know, mobile use in growing, and the threat of less visibility on mobile search should force many companies to take action. 

Those currently promoting poor UX or relying on low-cost solutions would be penalised by Google, reducing their potential to profit from mobile searchers. 

Grey areas

It is quite complex to judge what a ‘good mobile’ is, and Google has to do this via an automated process. While the poor usability of non-mobile sites like the Mail and Next is obvious, others can be okay to use yet still suffer from this change. 

American Apparel would seem to have cause for complaint, I’ve certainly seen plenty of less usable sites on mobile. 

While moves that seek to reward good usability are to be welcomed, there are a few questions around this update. 

Writing on this blog, Dan Barker outlined some of the grey areas, including the classification of tablets. Are they mobile as far as this update is concerned? 

I asked Maria: 

The foreseeing impact of Mobilegeddon is expected to be noteworthy on mobile only. Pre-launch indications imply that tablets will remain unaffected, which shows the clear differentiation of tablets and mobile.

However, it remains unclear how Google classifies the so-called ‘phablets’ and whether this category will be affected by the upcoming ‘mobile-friendly’ algorithm update].

What can companies do? 

Well, the obvious answer is to go mobile, and I can see plenty of new responsive sites being launched as a result of this update. 

However, the six weeks from Google’s announcement to the ranking coming into effect doesn’t provide much time for companies, and many may first want to assess the impact before rushing any updates. 

As Dan Barker writes, it may speed up some plans that are already in process: 

If you’re a small site & have done nothing around becoming mobile-friendly so far, it may be worth the risk to try and quickly shift.

If you’re a medium/large site & have not yet sorted out the mobile side of things, do get planning. It’s likely you already began to plan several years ago, it’s worth putting some actual timelines on achieving this.

It looks like Econsultancy launched a responsive site just in time…