Looks Like Google Is Rolling Out A New Algorithm

Google has been sending A LOT of notifications to webmasters with sites that apparently are not mobile friendly.  Have you or your web developer received an email like this?  If you are not sure, you better check.  The subject line says, “Fix mobile usability issues found on” and then the domain name.  The notification goes on to say how 100% of your pages contain critical mobile usability errors on 100% of your pages and that “these pages will not be seen as mobile-friendly by Google Search and will therefore be displayed and ranked appropriate for smartphone users.”  What does this mean? Simply put, your site will not rank well in mobile search.

The mass notifications seem to be a clear sign that Google is getting ready to launch a new mobile ranking algorithm.  Preceding this letter, Google sent out some other signals that this algorithm change would be happening.  It recently launched a mobile friendly testing tool and mobile usability reports in Google Webmaster Tools.  It also started showing mobile-friendly labels in the search results.  It seems something big is happening.

What should you do?  If you received this notification, talk to your web developer about making your website mobile friendly.  If you are not sure, even the more reason to reach out.  If you don’t have a relationship with a web developer, you better start one.  Something big is happening.  You don’t want to be hit after what appears to be a new pending algorithm is launched.