This past Tuesday, Google, always looking out for its users, announced that in the next few weeks mobile-friendly websites would be getting “mobile-friendly” labels in search results, thus getting better visibility and higher rankings by mobile users. “We see these labels as a first step in helping mobile users to have a better mobile web experience. We are also experimenting with using the mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal,” says on Google Webmaster Central Blog.
“Mobile-friendly” badges will help users to skip websites whose software isn’t supported on mobile phones, Flash for example, and will ensure that people won’t have to scroll sideways to see all the content and read tiny text or hardly visible links, as it often happens with unoptimized web pages. Search results on smartphones and tablets also now have a footer that links to the page explaining what Google considers mobile-friendly. Here are its criteria:
– Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash
– Uses text that is readable without zooming
– Sizes content to the screen so that users won’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom
– Places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped
Google has a simple tool that allows users, developers, and publishers to test if a specific website can be considered mobile-friendly. All they need to do is to simply enter a URL on this page. Check it out! We’ve already done so and confirmed that snappii.com is indeed a terrific mobile-friendly website.