Google's well-publicised 'mobile friendly' update is now here, but are some of the world's biggest brands ready for it?

The worldwide update, which will “expanding the use of ‘mobile friendliness’ as a ranking signal” from April 21st, is expected to roll out over the course of the week. But despite the warnings, many leading brands still don't meet Google's 'mobile friendly' criteria, so what will the impact be? Our Strategy Director, Paul Huggett, explains what's going on.

And if you want to know how to best exploit this update for your brand, catch up on all our other mobile blog content or, contact us now.

Video Transcript

Hello and welcome to Digital Minute, where we’re focusing on Google’s big Mobile Friendly roll-out.

Google’s much publicised “mobile friendly” update starts rolling out this week, so start keeping an eye on your mobile traffic.

This update has been described as “bigger than Penguin and Panda”, so it is one you definitely need to pay attention to.

The update will essentially see Google favour sites that it considers to be “mobile friendly” on mobile searches. If you have a responsive site that can be easily used on a mobile device, you may well see an increase in rankings from April 21st.

If, on the other hand, your website is an absolute nightmare to use on a mobile phone screen, you can probably expect to see a fall in traffic.

We’ve been banging on about this update for ages despite the warnings, and the growth of mobile traffic, not all brands appear ready for the change. A Techcrunch investigation found that 44% of websites for the Fortune 500 brands failed the mobile-friendly test – including US mobile telecoms giant AT&T.

We’ve talked about the update extensively on our blog and we’ll be taking a look at the damage as the update rolls out, so keep an eye on our Twitter feed.

Thanks for watching. I’m Paul Huggett and that was your Digital Minute.

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