Death and taxes are the only things that can be certain in this world. It’s true. If you are a website owner or marketer, you can also be sure of one thing: Google’s ranking algorithm updates.
Rumors of possible updates are constantly circulating in the SEO community. According to Moz, Google releases 500-600 updates a year. Google confirmed in a tweet that they make changes to their ranking algorithm every single day.
The majority of these updates consist of minor tweaks, improvements, and some major overhauls. You can expect that some websites will see their search rankings drop after an update, no matter how little. Other websites’ search rankings may improve.
No one wants to be pushed down the results pages of a search engine. While Google’s algorithm updates and SEO in general can seem mysterious, you actually have more control over the way your website responds to these changes than you think.
How can you prepare for a Google algorithm update?
What are the things that you should be looking at to determine if an update has caused SEO issues?
Why Google’s ranking algorithm changes so often
It can be difficult to keep up with and adapt to the 500+ changes that occur every year. It’s even more difficult when you realize that Google uses 200 ranking criteria.
Understanding why Google updates so frequently — and what motivates these updates — really is key. This can help you keep up with and adapt to the constant changes.
Why does Google’s algorithm for ranking change so frequently?
Google is always striving to provide its users with the most optimal experience. Google’s Vice President of Engineering Ben Gomes said it best: “Our goal is to provide you with the exact answer that you are searching for quicker.”
This means that you should give your visitors the best possible user experience. You won’t have to worry about SEO updates if your website is up-to-date. If your website is not up to par, you may find yourself ranked lower than you would like in search engine results.
What you need to know about the latest Google ranking algorithm update
Google’s recent flurry of algorithmic updates — SEOs reported suspected updates as late as April 17, 2018 — appear to be a major deal. On March 26, Google finally announced that it would begin rolling out its long-anticipated, mobile-first indexing after months of testing.
Google has penalized websites that are not mobile-friendly for mobile search rankings ever since it released the first version in April 2015. With mobile-first indexing, however, your website’s quality on mobile could also impact how you rank for desktop searches.
Google currently considers your desktop website version to be primary. It’s also the version that Google uses to index your content and, in turn, rank your website.
As the name implies, Google’s algorithm now uses your mobile website as its starting point for global rankings. If your website is mobile friendly, it will not only get a ranking boost for mobile searches. It may receive a boost for desktop searches in the future.
This is a simple explanation.
Google is reluctant to give a precise figure but has said that more than 50% of the search volume worldwide comes from mobile devices. Other studies place the figure between 55.79% and 58%.
In the future, Google users are expected to access the site primarily through their mobile devices. By making the mobile version the primary version of the website, Google aims to improve the experience of a large number of users.
What does it mean for you to go from desktop-first to mobile-first?
Google says that it only uses mobile-first search indexing for ready sites. These are websites that follow Google’s mobile-first indexing best practices, meaning they can be moved with little to no impact on the rankings.
Google doesn’t create a mobile-first index. Google crawls websites and adds them to its existing index by using a mobile-first strategy. In the end, Google will index the mobile version of your website instead of the desktop version. The mobile version, not the desktop version, will begin to appear in global search results.
There are two main takeaways from this article.
A mobile-friendly site is essential, especially with the growing volume of mobile searches. Your customers are increasingly using their mobile devices to search for you online. If your website doesn’t work well on mobile or isn’t responsive, then it will be difficult for customers to find you.
It’s also important to make sure your mobile website is perfect.
Google’s mobile-first indexing is a ranking system that favors the mobile version of a website over its desktop version. If your mobile site is incomplete ha, has placeholders, performs poorly, or otherwise breaks, you may not rank well on mobile.
Speed is the Essence
Google penalizes slow desktop websites. It’s also expected that starting in July 2018, Google will implement a new ranking algorithm update – aptly named the “speed update” – which will penalize mobile websites as well.
In 2018, we wrote a separate blog on the importance of website speed. It’s worth repeating.
Slow websites can lead to a bad user experience, increasing bounce rates and reducing conversions. No one likes to wait for a web page to load. With the introduction of mobile-first indexing and an update that will make mobile site speed into a ranking factor, you could be facing a double blow if your site does not meet industry standards.
Google’s latest data shows that 53% of users who visit mobile websites will abandon your website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to open. You won’t be shocked to find out that this percentage increases exponentially with the length of the loading time.
We recommend that you aim for a load time of no more than 3 seconds. Google’s pageSpeed Insights can be used to identify issues that are slowing down your website.
Despite their importance, mobile friendliness and speed are only two of the 200 ranking factors.
This brings us to the final point.