Google to penalize non mobile-friendly blogs and websites?

Last year, Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) of Google indicated that the number of search queries on Google from mobile devices far surpasses the number of desktop/laptop search queries.

So it makes sense that Google is now notifying webmasters of sites that are not mobile-friendly to fix mobile usability issues.

As reported by widely respected search engine consultant, Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick), Google is telling webmasters with sites that have mobility errors on 100% of the site’s pages that their sites will be “displayed and ranked appropriately for smartphone users.”

Per Schwartz:

What we have here is Google reminding these webmasters their sites are not mobile-friendly and issuing a warning that the pages won’t rank well in mobile search.

There are clear signs that a new mobile ranking algorithm is about to launch at Google. Google told us they are experimenting with it since November. They also launched a mobile friendly testing tool, mobile usability reports in Google Webmaster Tools, and mobile-friendly labels in the search results.

Schwartz shared a copy of the email going to webmasters of non-optimized sites.

It makes sense for Google to rank blogs and websites which are not mobile-friendly lower in search results on mobile searches.

Google has always been focused on user experience and trying to do the right thing. Sending folks to sites which cannot be easily viewed is hardly the right thing to do. It’s an awful user experience.

As a law blogger you need to be mobile-friendly for a number of reasons. It’s the right thing to do for followers. Why make it tough or impossible for them?

News and information moves socially across social networks today. People are using social networks on mobile. Non-mobile content will not be shared and seen on social networks.

Now you have one more reason to be mobile-friendly. A big one. Google.

h/t Gyi Tsakalakis

Image by Flickr by Mark Knol