This article was published on November 18, 2014

Google now highlights mobile-friendly websites in search results


Google now highlights mobile-friendly websites in search results

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.

mobile-friendly

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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