Responsive websites to get further rankings boost this May

By Arthur Wilson
Head of Content & SEO

Google has announced in an article on the Official Webmaster Central Blog that it is to tweak its algorithms to give responsive websites a further rankings boost in the next few months.

The mobile friendly ranking algorithm, which first launched on the 21st April last year, will be getting a ranking signal boost in the beginning of May.

Klemen Kloboves, Software Engineer at Google said in the post: “Getting good, relevant answers when you search shouldn’t depend on what device you’re using. You should get the best answer possible, whether you’re on a phone, desktop or tablet. Last year, we started using mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal on mobile searches. Today we’re announcing that beginning in May, we’ll start rolling out an update to mobile search results that increases the effect of the ranking signal to help our users find even more pages that are relevant and mobile-friendly.
“If you’ve already made your site mobile-friendly, you will not be impacted by this update. If you need support with your mobile-friendly site, we recommend checking out the Mobile-Friendly Test and the Webmaster Mobile Guide, both of which provide guidance on how to improve your mobile site. And remember, the intent of the search query is still a very strong signal — so even if a page with high quality content is not mobile-friendly, it could still rank well if it has great, relevant content.”

What does the announcement mean for webmasters?

The roll-out of the original mobile friendly ranking algorithm had quite a big impact on the SERPs, and this new announcement will give responsive sites even more sway in the battle for rankings.

You should know whether or not your website is currently fully responsive or not, and if it isn’t, you have little over a month to fix the problem. Aside from the potential to lose valuable organic traffic, over half of all traffic this year is from a handheld device. Properly responsive pages will have a lower bounce rate and will convert far better. So what are you waiting for?

If you need help with your website, you can get in touch with Forever today right here.