Will your website be affected by Google's search changes

Today Google started to take into account how mobile friendly a web site is when determining how high up the search listings a site would be shown if the search was being performed on a mobile device.  We have written in the past how important it is for your web site to look good on mobile phones as well as on a desktop computer, but from today it is even more important.

The official Google announcement of the change can be found here.  This is the crucial part of the announcement "This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices."

So to be clear, from today if your web site will does not display well on a mobile phone then when someone is using a mobile phone to seach the internet then Google will penalise your site and show it lower down the search engine listings than would otherwise have been the case.

For a large number of local businesses, whose web sites are particularly aimed at visitors on the Isle of Wight this is especially important. People coming over to the Isle of Wight on holiday won't bring their desktop computer with them, and if they need to access the internet they are likely to do so on a mobile phone or tablet, and its important that your web site looks good on these devices

If you want to test out your own site for mobile friendliness then use this tool from Google.