It can be pretty annoying when you’re browsing the Web on a mobile device, only to find out the site you’re visiting has a terrible layout on your phone. Google wants to make your life a bit easier by highlighting sites that have been optimized for mobile devices in its search results.
Of course, with so many different ideas about web design, it can be tricky defining what’s truly mobile friendly. For Google, such a page does the following:
- Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash
- Uses text that is readable without zooming
- Sizes content to the screen so users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom
- Places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped
The company says it is also experimenting with using mobile-friendliness as a criteria for its search rankings. This could mean moving sites optimized for mobile devices higher up search results when browsing a mobile device, but no such change has been specified so far.
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The new mobile-friendly tag will roll out to search results globally over the coming weeks.
➤ Helping users find mobile-friendly pages [Google Webmaster Central Blog]
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