Mobile Site Speed Will Now Affect your Mobile Google Ranking

When performing a Google search, users rely on Google to rank pages on the basis of relevancy and reliability. Among the many factors determining search engine page rank, in 2010 page speed became an important determining factor of page rank in search results. Faster pages were ranked higher than the slower pages. Thanks to this, internet users have been able to find the information they searched for quicker, but the situation gets tricky when it comes to mobile searches.

With the switch from a desktop-run world to a mobile world, companies have adapted their websites to be mobile-friendly. Nonetheless, Google continues to rank pages based solely on how websites load on a desktop. This takes us to the current problem: slow and bloated mobile friendly web pages that take forever to load. Frustratingly having to wait for highly ranked pages to load on your mobile device, completely defeats the purpose of a fast-paced, mobile world.

The good news for users is that Google has announced that it is experimenting with its page speed algorithm to add mobile-specific page speed as a ranking factor, and not rely on the desktop version. According to Google, this update is only months away from being put into action. This is also good news for companies who have invested in optimizing their mobile pages, as they will finally get rewarded with a higher ranking based on this factor.

For those who have relied on a strong and trustworthy desktop site to lure in mobile users, they will surely be affected by these changes. Nonetheless, it’s not all bad news for the late adopters. Research shows that for every second your site takes to load, you lose 11% of viewers. Therefore, updating your mobile site’s speed will surely help you retain those visitors!

CaribMedia designs modern and effective mobile friendly websites and offers fast, headache-free cloud hosting for websites. Contact us if you wish to have a reliable mobile site that will rank high on search engine results and will keep up with the latest technologies. We will be glad to help!