Are you ready for Mobile-geddon?
The closer it gets to April 21st, the more the term “Mobile-geddon” is showing up in my feeds, including Twitter.
“Mobilegeddon” Is Coming on April 21 – Are You Ready?
Google changes mobile search – Mobile-geddon!
The Google “Mobile-geddon” Update — Are You Prepared?
Last month I received an email from The Google Webmaster Tools Team, letting me know that “Google systems have tested 47 pages from your site and found that 100% of them have critical mobile usability errors. The errors on these 47 pages severely affect how mobile users are able to experience your website. These pages will not be seen as mobile-friendly by Google Search, and will therefore be displayed and ranked appropriately for smartphone users.” The email also said “Fix this now” and gave some suggestions on how to fix the issues.
When they said “Fix this now” they really meant it. On Thursday, April 16th, I received an email from Google AdSense that said beginning April 21, 2015, “Google Search will be expanding its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal.” They provided a link for testing my site, using their Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool.
Fortunately I had used a template from CSS Menu Maker that was pretty easy to tweak, and it also meant I could maintain the same web site structure, without having to change any page names. I uploaded the new version of the site and ran it through the Testing Tool again:
Obviously, I’ll be testing my site with other tools, but at least I’m ready for Mobile-geddon.