Mobilegeddon II is Coming: Are you Prepared?

Uh oh, Google just announced that a new mobile-friendly update is coming in May 2016. And, as such, I’m going to personally be the first one to call this Mobilegeddon II. Not because of the fact that the first mobile friendly update back in April 2015 was catastrophic–just because this is the second mobile friendly update for Google that they’ve announced ahead of time, and, well, the first one was called Mobilegeddon.

Jennifer first posted about this update in May, and I’m calling it Mobilegeddon II.

So, here’s what we know and what you need to know. I’ve decided to put all of this in an easy to read bulleted format.

The First Mobilegeddon
Here’s what you should know (or refresh your memory) about the 1st Mobilegeddon:

– Google announced, ahead of time, a separate mobile algorithm.
– If your site was not mobile friendly by April 21, 2015, then you supposedly would lose out on all sorts of traffic from mobile devices
– Since Google announced this update ahead of time, it gave time for the rumor mill to start. It was billed as “Mobilegeddon” and would be catastrophic for websites if they weren’t mobile friendly by April 21, 2015.
– Many sites that I follow didn’t lose any traffic from Google and didn’t gain a lot of organic search traffic. Maybe because most sites I follow actually were already mobile friendly.
– Stone Temple did a study that essentially showed that there were changes, and the first Mobilegeddon had an impact. Nearly 50 percent of non-mobile friendly URLs dropped in rank.

The Second Mobilegeddon
Google announced the Mobilegeddon II (although they don’t call it that), which is coming in May 2015. Here’s what you need to know:
– If your site isn’t mobile friendly, and you can make it mobile friendly by May, then you should do so.
– Frankly, I’m surprised that your site isn’t mobile friendly yet, but what do I know? (ha, ha!)
– Mobile-friendliness is a search engine ranking signal on mobile searches according to Google. How much of a signal remains to be seen, though.
– Starting in May 2016, Google will update the mobile algorithm, increasing the effect of the ranking signal. How much of an increase we will see remains to be seen. We just don’t know.
– Non-mobile friendly sites could still rank well on mobile device searches. According to Google, “intent of the search query is still a very strong signal”.
– I suspect that the Mobilegeddon II update, in May 2016, won’t be as catastrophic as some have rumored the first one to be.

Well, there you have it…that’s my take on Mobilegeddon II, the second mobile friendly update by Google. I’ll update this post as warranted.