When Google started, people searched from desktop computers. Once smartphones took off, that changed, and Google had to adjust its algorithm for people searching on a phone. Someone on a phone often wants something different from someone at a desk: directions, a phone number, an answer they can read while standing in line. The Mobile update was Google’s move to give those searchers results they could actually use on a small screen. It also forced a lot of site owners to act. Sites built only for desktop had to rework their layouts and designs so mobile users could find them and use them. Here, we explain what the Mobile update did and what your site needs in order to do well under it.
Launch Date: April 21, 2015
By spring 2015, people had been searching on phones for years. Plenty of sites still hadn’t been adapted for small screens, and until then they paid no price for it in search. Google decided to change that: pages with poor or no mobile usability would rank below pages that worked well on a phone. Those pages had been frustrating mobile searchers and making Google’s results look bad, at a time when a large share of searches already came from phones (a share that has only grown since). The Mobile update ended that free pass.
What Google’s Mobile update affected
The Mobile update was about the experience people have on a phone. Poor mobile usability is what set it off. If your site has no mobile version, or has one that is hard to use, your rankings in mobile search will show it. Google applied the update page by page, so one weak template could hurt a whole section of a site.
- No mobile site. Mobile searches were already growing in 2015, and today more searches happen on phones than on desktop computers. Google now also crawls and indexes sites using their mobile version (mobile-first indexing), so a desktop-only site is behind on two fronts. If your site still has no mobile version, fix that before anything else on this list. People looking for your products or services on their phones are landing on a page they can’t use, and they go to a competitor instead.
- Poor mobile usability is nearly as bad as having no mobile site at all. A page that loads slowly, squeezes its layout into a confusing stack, or has buttons too small to tap (or so large they crowd out the content) makes for a frustrating visit. Many mobile visitors who hit that just leave.
How the Mobile update works
The risks under the Mobile update are few, but they’re serious. If your design ignores mobile users, your mobile rankings will suffer. Google’s crawlers check each page for the problems described above: no mobile version, text too small to read, links packed too close together, content wider than the screen. A page that fails can be pushed well down the mobile results, below competitors whose pages work on a phone. Desktop rankings were not part of this update.
How to update your website design for the Mobile update
By now the goal of the Mobile update is plain: serve people on phones. Most searching happens on phones today, so this is about the visitors you already have. Here are some steps that help your site work for mobile visitors and hold its place in Google’s SERPs.
- Check how mobile-friendly you are. Google retired its Mobile-Friendly Test in December 2023, so use Lighthouse (built into Chrome’s developer tools) or PageSpeed Insights instead. Both load your page as a phone would and report problems like small tap targets, unreadable text and slow loading.
- Choose a responsive theme: a responsive site adjusts to fit any device, browser or screen size. Most new themes are built that way, but don’t assume it. Open the theme’s demo on your own phone and on a tablet before you commit, and test the menus and forms.
- Pick a reliable web host. Your host sets your site’s speed and resources, and mobile visitors notice speed first.
- Improve loading time. A fast site gives Google one less reason to rank you lower and gives visitors less reason to leave, which tends to show up in your sales and leads. There are plenty of ways to speed things up. Start by compressing your images, minifying your code and turning on caching, then rerun PageSpeed Insights to see what’s left to fix.
How quickly mobile rankings recover
Good news: the Mobile update runs in real time. Once a page works on mobile, Google picks up the change on its next crawl. To speed that up, request indexing through URL Inspection in Search Console.
If mobile optimization feels like a lot to take on, start with an SEO audit. A thorough review shows you exactly what to fix so your site works on phones and reaches more of the people searching on them.