Google Highlighting Mobile Friendly Pages In Search Results

Google is focusing more towards mobile optimization of the website as the trend of accessing internet through mobile devices is increasing. A mobile user likes to view those pages which are optimized with readable text size, width adjustable to device size and don't require zooming or side scrolling to view the content properly. This makes a perfect mobile friendly webpage. More than couple of weeks ago, Google introduced mobile usability reports in webmaster tools to find issues related to mobile devices. In recent update to Official Webmasters Blog, Google has announced to reward mobile friendly sites by highlighting them in search results as "Mobile Friendly" site.

This is good news for mobile searchers and for webmasters who have optimized their website to be viewed on mobile devices. It will help a user to figure out if the webpage is mobile friendly or not hence visiting webpages optimized to suite their device. A "Mobile-friendly" label will be used to highlight mobile optimized webpages.

Google has announced that this update will be rolling out globally over the next few weeks. A page passes a mobile-friendly test and eligible for getting mobile-friendly label if it fulfills following eligibility criteria.

• Doesn't contain plugins, widgets or software which are not suitable for mobile devices.
• Use appropriate text size which is readable without zooming the page.
• Size of the page contents is fits the screen width hence user doesn't have to zoom or scoll the page horizontally.
• Placement of clickable links should be far enough so that user finds it easier to tap correct link.

Make sure that your site meets the above eligibility criteria so that your webpage is indexed well by Google. Following measures can be taken to confirm it.

• Check your webpage with Google Mobile friendly testing tool to check if the page is optimized for website.
• Check for Mobile usability reports in webmaster tools to find and fix issues with mobile pages.

Conclusion:

The recent steps taken by Google show that they aren't ignoring mobile devices and interested in giving mobile users a friendly search experience so webmasters should look towards this trend. They must make their site suitable for all devices including mobile, smartphones, tablets along with desktops. We can predict if Google is going to use mobile optimization as a ranking signal.