Will Google Also Penalize Desktop Rankings If Your Site is Not Mobile Friendly?

[Eric_Lifescript]

Apologies if this question has already been answered. I was unable to find it. For desktop organic rankings: Will Google take into consideration mobile-readiness as a ranking factor?

Thanks in advance for any reply,

Kind regards,
Eric Darby

[Christy-Correll]

Hi Eric,

You've received some great responses here! All are spot-on (as far as one can be answering this question at this time, that is.) You may also be interested to know that Dr. Pete has answered this question here in the forum at http://moz.com/community/q/google-s-mobile-update-what-we-know-so-far-updated-3-25. He actually posted a Q&A of common questions about the mobile update, taking new questions in the discussion thread, and updating the original Q&A post as new information becomes available.

Christy

[Houses]

I would work on the assumption that it will affect the rankings on desktop too and if you have time to make your site responsive in time then I would - it covers all bases then.

Also, as mobile searches are increasing it makes sense to go responsive as soon as you can.

[MonicaOConnor]

I think that is the big unknown at this point. All we know so far is what Google has said “This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.”

The first part references it’s affect on mobile searches and then goes on to state “AND will have a significant impact on our search results”

Google doesn't have a separate index for mobile so that leads me to lean toward thinking that it will affect all searches desktop and mobile, however that is not to say that Google could simply filter mobile searches and have this only affect mobile. They are working on a mobile index however, so who is to say that won't be launched at the same time as this new update.

The fact that they have released so much information ahead of time means the update is probably going to be a huge one. In my opinion, unless the mobile index is launched at the same time, then there is no way this change won't affect desktop rankings.

[MattAntonino]

The best answer we can give before the change is "not intentionally."  It seems they intend to affect mobile rankings but some residual effect may trickle across to desktop rankings.

Just as an example, let's say pageviews were a ranking factor (I doubt they are directly one, but it's easy to visualise.)

Your mobile ranking drops as a result of not having a mobile friendly site. By your traffic dropping, your desktop numbers are no longer as good and boom, you drop as well.

It's not that straightforward (and again, pageviews are not necessarily a ranking factor) but that is the way it could trickle across. So for now, I'd say "We don't expect it to but it's possible."

[DirkC]

Hi Eric,

There are some similar questions regarding the topic on the forum (unfortunately the search function Moz is not really best in class) - check also these questions:

http://moz.com/community/q/google-s-mobile-friendly-update-how-significant-is-the-impact-for-us
http://moz.com/community/q/google-mobile-algorithm-update

Basically, nobody knows what the effect is going to be. Most of the stuff I read about it seem to indicate that there will be no impact for desktop, but again we don't know. Google seems to indicate that it will have a big impact, so if you have a lot of mobile traffic, you risk to loose a lot.

The mobile friendly check is done is on page not site level - so you could try to work on your most important (mobile) landing pages and make them responsive / adapted for mobile. It doesn't really have to be state of the art - the goal is that the page passes the mobile friendly test - you can always improve later on.

rgds

Dirk

[adammason]

Hi Eric

It sounds like Google will only affect websites only on Google's mobile listings. So rankings on the desktop version of Google should be unaffected. They are doing this purely from a user experience perspective and are devaluing sites that aren't mobile ready for users on a mobile device,.