An article that I just read posted on Search Engine Land and written by Danny Sullivan shed light on the fact that Google appears to be rewarding websites that have a “mobile-friendly” web design. While they have already made it clear that they penalize websites that provide a poor mobile experience to users in general, it seems fitting that they should reward those that have done their best to provide an awesome mobile experience. In fact, in Mr. Sullivan’s article he mentioned that Google is experimenting with this concept by giving mobile-friendly websites a label that says: “Mobile-friendly.”
If you have a smartphone and do a mobile search on Google, one thing that you may (or might not notice) is that certain websites have “Mobile-friendly” inserted directly underneath the URL.
A cool concept if you ask me.
While Google has not “officially” announced that they are rewarding websites that are mobile-friendly, it seems like this is more or less than what they are leaning towards. Plus, I believe if they are penalizing websites that provide a poor mobile experience, why not reward those that work hard to make them right?
No matter what the case, I believe that people will be more inclined to visit mobile websites in general instead of visiting websites that are outdated and as not as responsive as the new ones. In fact, as someone who uses their phone throughout the day—as most people do—I would feel much more comfortable clicking on a link to a website that will provide me with a great mobile experience.
What do you think? Does visiting a mobile-friendly website matter to you?
