Google's Gary Illyes Discusses Mobile as a Ranking Factor / Blogs / Perficient

The Digital Essentials, Part 3

Developing a robust digital strategy is both a challenge and an opportunity. Part 3 of the Digital Essentials guide series explores five of the essential technology-driven experiences customers expect, which you may be missing or not fully utilizing.

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BONUS! Watch our Live Virtual Keynote Online Event on “All Things Mobile” withGoogle’s Gary Illyes and Eric Enge.
Google’s Gary Illyes recently was gracious enough to answer questions about the new “Mobile-Friendly” ranking factor, as well as other SEO related topics.

Eric Enge, Question 1: This Search Engine Land article provides a lot of information on what it takes to earn “mobile-friendly” status with Google. The article lists these 4 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 users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom
Places links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped

Does this mean that other factors, such as page load time, or periodic server problems (i.e. 503s and 404s), are NOT included as a factor in earning this label?
Gary Illyes: We are of course looking for ways to improve the coverage and accuracy of this label, but currently if a URL comes back positive on the Mobile-Friendly Test, the specific URL will get a mobile-friendly label in our search results. This tool is the best resource for learning about the criteria we are currently using.

Indirectly server errors can also play a role: if a page is coming back with 404 HTTP status code, we won’t index it so it can’t get a mobile-friendly label, and the same applies on most of the other error codes.

Eric Enge, Question 2: Is this mobile-friendly designation available to ANY site that meets the guidelines? Or is it only available to sites that meet authority or trust related metrics.
Gary Illyes: Yes, this is for any site and page that meets the criteria. Currently, if the page passes the checks in the Mobile-Friendly Test, it gets a badge; it’s that simple. For future updates on the mobile-friendliness front, also keep an eye on the Mobile usability report in Google Webmaster Tools, which highlights major mobile usability issues across your entire site, not just one page. It’s probably the quickest way to learn about what site-wide usability issues we think you should fix.

Eric Enge, Question 3: Google has been putting more and more emphasis on user experience lately. You discussed this quite a bit at SMX East. Can you share your thoughts on why this is so important to Google?
Gary Illyes: That’s easy: whatever we do, it’s about the user. We want them happy and if we can contribute to their happiness, we will. I think it’s pretty clear that mobile-friendly websites provide a much better user experience for mobile users. Studies consistently reflect this, as an example, 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site that they had trouble accessing from their phone. We’re putting more emphasis on UX because we simply want users to enjoy the web, regardless of what device they’re using or where they are.
Eric Enge, Question 4: What are the 2 or 3 most serious UX problems you see with regard to mobile?
Gary Illyes: I wouldn’t pick just 2 or 3, actually. We’ve identified quite a few in our Mobile Usability article and they include illegible text caused by small font sizes, the necessity for excessive panning and zooming, or elements that are hard to click. Fixing these is a great first step, but then there are other problems which the PageSpeed Insights tool can highlight.

Eric Enge, Question 5: Recently Google announced that HTTPS had been made a ranking factor. You and I also sat on a panel at SMX East where we talked about the impact. Can you talk about the scenarios in which this might actually make a difference in the rankings?
Gary Illyes: You came up with a pretty good way to describe it just before our session at SMX, when you said it’s like the Vice President acting as a tiebreaker in a 50-50 Senate vote. All things being equal in two results, it can make a difference for the result that is using the HTTPS protocol. It’s important to note though that we use hundreds of signals to rank our results, and while the HTTPS signal is one of them, it doesn’t carry as much weight as relevance for example.

Eric Enge, Question 6: Another UX concern is the publisher’s site itself. The recent Panda 4.1 update was the 27th update of that algorithm. Can you talk about the most common content quality problems people have with their web sites?
Gary Illyes: I’m not involved in anything Panda, but the 23 points we shared in 2011 are still relevant and the best resource to fix Panda related issues. We’ve seen sites that managed to recover from Panda’s effect using these guidelines.
Eric Enge, Question 7: When someone has an eCommerce site with tens of thousands of pages, or more, how would you suggest they look at incorporating content on the product pages of their web site?
Eric Enge, Question 8: What would you advise for consumer coupon sites? Sites like these have so many pages, are seen as valuable to users, but are challenging to get lots of original content on every page. What can they do to avoid being seen as poor quality sites by Google’s algos (including Panda)?
Gary Illyes: For 7 & 8, it’s actually very important for a business to stand out when there are many sites selling the same product, and I strongly believe that it is possible to get high quality and unique content on any product page. For example, some users like to write reviews; that’s already something that other users will appreciate. Product tests are more involved but they are, again, a great source for unique, valuable information. Personally, I find both of these kinds of content to be really useful.
Eric Enge, Question 9: One interesting aspect of this is John Mueller has indicated that going forward Penguin updates will be more frequent. What form will that take? Would it be monthly-ish like Panda has become, or something else?
Gary Illyes: The feedback on our recent Penguin refresh was, as far as I can tell, better than for previous refreshes. We are indeed looking into how we can make Penguin refreshes more regular like Panda’s, but since I’m not involved in these algorithms’ development I don’t know at what stage are we at.

About Gary Illyes: Gary Illyes is a webmaster trends analyst dedicated to creating a better search experience for users by helping webmasters create amazing websites. When not crunching data to find ways to improve web search, Gary is contributing to the Webmaster Central Blog and helps users debug their websites in the Google Webmaster Forums.
Prior joining Google in 2011, Gary was teaching online journalism in Romania and abroad. He was a technical consultant for several high profile media outlets, and he spent his free time on online forums helping webmasters troubleshoot web- and news-search related issues. He has studied IT at the University of Phoenix and holds an associate’s degree in journalism from the Ady Endre College of Journalism in Romania.

Thoughts on “Google’s Gary Illyes Discusses Mobile as a Ranking Factor”

Miraj Gazi November 25, 2014 at 6:32 am

Hi Eric,
Thanks for this awesome interview. It is really great to learnt the things like eCommerce SEO, UX and Google Updates from a Googler.
Bob Gladstein November 25, 2014 at 8:46 am

There’s a mention or two here of the site as a whole, but I don’t think Google’s been sufficiently clear so far about whether the “mobile-friendly” badge is for a page or a site. If my landing page provides a great experience for mobile users, but every link on that page takes the user to a page that they can’t read, will Google still consider my landing page to be worthy of the badge?
Eric Enge November 25, 2014 at 9:15 am

Hi Bob – good to hear from you here. You are right that they have not been totally clear about this, but I would bet that this operates at a page level. But, I could be wrong about that!
Mike November 25, 2014 at 12:59 pm

Any advice for how to convince my company’s higher ups that mobile is something we need to take seriously?
Our site is not mobile friendly, but management is not keen on change, since the site would need to be completely redesigned. I’m worried that our rankings have dipped a bit because of the lack of mobile-friendly pages.
Thanks for the insight!
Eric Enge November 25, 2014 at 1:50 pm

Hi Mike – My suggestion would to go into analytics and show them what percentage of the site’s traffic is coming from mobile devices today. It’s fairly easily found in Google Analytics, if you are using that. Then show them what the current mobile user’s experience looks like.
Most sites get at least 30% of their traffic from mobile devices today, and if the mobile experience is really bad, it is costing you business.
Rajib November 26, 2014 at 3:08 am

Eric its really wonderful interview. Like your interview. Thanks to share with us.
Bob I think google still researching on mobile SEO 🙂
Darren DeMatas November 26, 2014 at 3:55 pm

Awesome interview, Eric. UX is not going away anytime soon and it should be a critical factor of any SEO campaign.
Mik Dunne November 27, 2014 at 11:35 am

Hi Eric,
Great interview. Just wondering what was the search term that produced the result to display mobile friendly in the SERP’s. I Googled this on a mobile in the UK and did not see this tag. Maybe it hasn’t rolled out in UK yet.
Cheers
Mik
Eric Enge November 27, 2014 at 9:22 pm

The term I used was “knowledge box study”. Note that the labels only show when you do the search from a mobile device.
Joe Ryan December 2, 2014 at 1:39 am

Hi Eric,
Very good interview and thanks for sharing.
I was actually doing some searches on the iPhone when I saw the posts from Danny Sullivan & Barry Schwarz on SEW and noticed a client (along with my own newly branded site!) had homepage ‘Mobile-friendly’ labels, but a lot of landing pages didn’t. This is obviously going to be a huge (massive) job for a lot of large eCommerce sites out there.
Lots of fun ahead!
Thanks again,
Joe
Naman Verma December 6, 2014 at 3:38 pm

Eric – great post again..i read one of your old ones but could not comment…I think mobile is going to be a great factor espc in 2015 SEO….and you are right google is showing it on smartphone google searches too ( probably increases click-thru)
abu maram December 8, 2014 at 2:42 pm

Thanks for this awesome interview
Andy Kuiper December 9, 2014 at 12:22 pm

What an incredible resource! – gotta love this type of info – thanks Daniel 🙂
Luciano Borg December 12, 2014 at 4:52 am

Simple solution: Show them this article!
Victor December 13, 2014 at 12:54 pm

Thank you for the article, Gary.
My site get a “mobile friendly” result on the test, but it has not the same label in the search results. How do you think why?
Thank you.
Pallab December 20, 2014 at 2:57 pm

Totally makes sense ….. another gem!
Boruch Fishman December 29, 2014 at 11:37 am

Google wrote that one of three ways to make a site mobile friendly is to have the non-mobile site redirect to mobile friendly pages when it detects that a search is being made on a mobile device. If a website landing page is not mobile friendly but successfully redirects to a mobile friendly page when it detects that a mobile device is making the search, will it get a mobile friendly status?
Eric Enge December 29, 2014 at 12:38 pm

It should! That is basically what Google wants you to do.
Sneha Singhvi January 2, 2015 at 1:50 am

Thanks for putting your valuable thoughts on things above, great conversation indeed! I think, mobile is going to be the future of seo, however Google has clearly shown it to all the internet marketers and already taken a great step to optimize mobile seo to maximum. If someone is lacking in particular then problems are big-bigger-biggest! I read above conversation carefully and got some new tips to make sure my approach is going in positive direction. Thank-you very much for this awesome post!
Farhan February 2, 2015 at 7:09 am

Hi Eric,
Thanks for sharing this incredible interview with us. It will help me a lot. gonna love this type of info.
Simon Walker January 26, 2017 at 1:12 am

Awesome interview. Mobile SEO has certainly got an important place in the SEO world today.
Muzammil Hussain April 21, 2017 at 8:51 am

You’re right Simon Walker!
Mobile SEO is one the top trends in 2017. 50 to 60 percents searches done on mobile.
Tom Wade May 12, 2017 at 9:16 am

Thanks for putting your valuable thoughts on things above, great conversation indeed! I think, mobile is going to be the future of seo, however Google has clearly shown it to all the internet marketers and already taken a great step to optimize mobile seo to maximum. If someone is lacking in particular then problems are big-bigger-biggest! I read above conversation carefully and got some new tips to make sure my approach is going in positive direction. Thank-you very much for this awesome post!
Yasir Jamal June 11, 2017 at 5:49 pm

Thank you for share the valuable information. My website is going on track now. Thanks again.
Suman June 12, 2017 at 4:39 pm

Is AMP is one of the Ranking Factor. I am going to use AMP on my blog.
Thanks
Eric Enge June 14, 2017 at 11:07 am

AMP is not a ranking factor. If you were an actual news site, you could get into the AMP news carousel, and that would be awesome for traffic, but for any other site there is no ranking benefit.
Andy June 15, 2017 at 7:09 pm

Hi Eric,
Thanks for this awesome interview. I am beginner i love to read the latest SEO and Google latest algorithm updates.
Sarah Feldman August 8, 2017 at 10:23 am

i think desktop seo is on top of the list. mobile user percentage is still lower than desktop.
Mark Traphagen August 8, 2017 at 1:47 pm

Actually Google stated publicly last year that the mobile searches had surpassed desktop searches globally.
Mark August 9, 2017 at 1:33 pm

Really nice article. For sure Illyes Discusses mobile can be an important ranking factor. I was just looking to increase the traffic of my website.
Fadil August 9, 2017 at 3:14 pm

It is really good learning as every body is going to have mobile in hands and searching internet so no ranking factor is obvious……
Mark August 20, 2017 at 6:03 pm

Thanks for sharing this nice article.
carol August 23, 2017 at 7:33 pm

Mobile search is growing every year so it’s inevitable of it’s dominance in a few short years.
Albert August 25, 2017 at 8:19 am

Is https on Mobile based site is a Ranking factor in 2017.
Eric Enge August 25, 2017 at 10:07 am

HTTPS is a very small ranking factor that applies to both mobile and desktop. By very small, that means that is really only acts as a tiebreaker, when all other ranking factors are equal. There are many reasons to switch to HTTPS, but SEO is not one of them.
David September 7, 2017 at 2:23 am

Now these days everyone has mobile with internet connectivity. So mobile SEO is most important in 2017.
Como Ficar Rico September 13, 2017 at 11:06 am

Mobile Seo is not fashionable, but a trend and very practical.
rohan September 25, 2017 at 9:51 am

Awesome post about mobile seo tips, and how to use seo technique to improve online presence all are explained in detail here. thanks for sharing. how I can connect to you for new update on your blog.
Eric Enge September 25, 2017 at 11:07 am

There is a Subscribe button on the left Sidebar of every page of the blog.
Shahraz Khan September 28, 2017 at 4:18 am

Hello Eric,
I must say great work. Your post is amazingly viral on the social media and the great conversation indeed! I think, mobile search is going to be the future of search engine optimization, Google has clearly shown it to all the online marketers and already taken a great step to optimize mobile-friendly websites to maximum. I read above conversation carefully and I’m very grateful to you, to got some new tips to make sure my approach is going in positive direction. Thanks
Yasir jamal October 21, 2017 at 3:55 pm

amazing post of mobile SEO. really informative.
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smscompany October 23, 2017 at 2:31 am

Thanks for sharing – this is one of your best posts ever!
Angelina Smith November 20, 2017 at 5:08 am

Thanks for the useful information..
Adham June 18, 2018 at 6:34 am

I do agree that mobile friendly websites are not getting ranking while old age websites before having good ranking is now getting down on search engine in case of not mobile friendly.
Sana August 16, 2018 at 4:46 pm

Nowadays, mobile-friendly websites are getting more traffic and higher rank in google. However, I don’t agree with @Adham’s saying about old and new sites mobile friendly ranking factor. In my opinion, if you have good content and mobile friendly website then you’ll get the perks of great ranking.
jones October 31, 2018 at 6:21 am

I must say great work. Your post is amazingly viral on the social media and the great conversation indeed! I think, mobile search is going to be the future of search engine optimization, Google has clearly shown it to all the online marketers and already taken a great step to optimize mobile-friendly websites to maximum. I read above conversation carefully and I’m very grateful to you, to got some new tips to make sure my approach is going in positive direction. Thanks
Meet Sen October 31, 2018 at 10:23 am

I am glad that You explain answer in nice way . I added one question that Is AMP is required for website .
Mark Traphagen October 31, 2018 at 10:59 am

If you’re asking whether AMP is required for a website, the answer is no. But properly implemented, AMP can make your site faster on mobile.
Grace Lily November 13, 2018 at 1:50 am

That’s why it is very important for a company to have a good business app to better communicate with its potential customers. … With the growing number of people accessing the Internet via smartphones and tablets, mobile app development has the unique ability to access a large number of potential consumers.
Wijdan Shahid November 15, 2018 at 9:46 am

I should state incredible work. Your post is incredibly popular on the online networking and the extraordinary discussion without a doubt! I think, portable hunt will be the eventual fate of site improvement, Google has plainly demonstrated it to all the online advertisers and as of now made an incredible move to advance versatile cordial sites to greatest. I read above discussion deliberately and I’m exceptionally thankful to you, to got some new tips to ensure my methodology is going positive way. Much obliged
Jenny November 21, 2018 at 7:45 am

Thanks for sharing mobile ranking factor.
I am a blogger and know the appearance on your website on mobile, but to rank your site first you need to make your site mobile responsive..
after mobile first index algorithm, Expert has started to optimize your site for mobile..
Wilson January 14, 2019 at 7:15 am

I starting blogging 5 to 6 years from now…what i am noticing that more people are checking websites on smartphones then on their Mac books. Because its accessible anytime and anywhere….So mobile ranking factor is really important.
Channing Oliver January 15, 2019 at 8:43 am

Ive been looking to get my website in google’s good graces so this informative and helpful also it make sense the mobile friendliness will play an increase role in SEM since more people than ever web browse with a mobile devices out of convenience.
Anonymous January 22, 2019 at 7:35 pm

Yes Yes Yes That’s why it is very important for a company to have a good business app to better communicate with its potential customers. … With the growing number of people accessing the Internet via smartphones and tablets, mobile app development has the unique ability to access a large number of potential consumers.
Anonymous January 31, 2019 at 9:06 am

You are absolutely right. Mobile SEO is one the top trends in 2019. 50 to 70 percents searches done on mobile. Now a day’s people check website’s on mobile rather than laptops or desktops. That’s why, many big companies or organizations developed mobile apps for their businesses.
Thanks for sharing such a informative post.
Kacey February 15, 2019 at 12:49 pm

You are Absolutely right about Mobile as Major Ranking Factor..So, recently Google Launched AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) which reduce the load time up-to 50% for the Mobile page.
Robert Jones February 25, 2019 at 5:22 am

Mobile friendliness is ranking factor now. Now a days websites with AMP pages are getting better ranking in Google.
vervelogic March 16, 2019 at 8:51 am

Thanks for sharing mobile ranking factor.
This is really helpful.
Robsarah April 3, 2019 at 3:56 am

How can I Make AMP Work for my website if it’s not WordPress theme?
Akhilesh More April 24, 2019 at 3:09 pm

Hi,
Thanks for sharing this but wanted to know how can I use AMP for my custom PHP website. No CMS. Is it possible?
Help will be appreciated.
Anth April 26, 2019 at 3:35 pm

I Personally think that google is increasing Competitiveness, Protection and Spam websites out of the business….That’s the reason google had pointed Mobile as a ranking which will make quality site to raise in search engine optimization.
Eric Enge May 9, 2019 at 7:34 am

Yes, AMP can be used on a custom PHP website, but you’ll need to learn how to code in AMP.
Yes Machinery May 25, 2019 at 1:14 am

Amazing Post, Thank you for sharing this post really this is awesome and very useful
Davis September 8, 2019 at 2:02 pm

Thanks for the advice-I just checked my analytics and found that more then 50 percent users were using mobile as their gadget to access website. AMP is absolutely great.
abdulhasb October 13, 2019 at 12:34 am

How do I make an AMP website for my web design portfolio site? Any tips or example would be appreciated.
Deployplace November 8, 2019 at 10:50 pm

I never knew that https means that a website is secure. I would want to make sure that I don’t transfer any information over any sites that wouldn’t be safe. That way you reduce the risk of your identity being stolen.
Swapan K December 12, 2019 at 5:12 am

Hi Eric, Nice Interview! Mobile seo factor is important nowadays. Should be user intent help for mobile seo. Any tools available for best keywords for mobile seo.
Julie Hannah January 6, 2020 at 2:20 pm

Gary Illyes on Google’s search index: Google employee Gary Illyes made it clear on Twitter that Google only has one search index. In Google’s search index, all characteristics of a URL are documented.
Aira Pulido January 15, 2020 at 1:25 am

I think 80% op people using smartphones today for very big or small works. According to google update, they are tracking people every where, so its easy to know what they are thinking about any brand or business.
deborajohn January 15, 2020 at 5:28 am

Best 3 tools to analysis your site 1. Google analytics 2. Goolge search console 3. Google keyword planner.
Digital Goldman January 20, 2020 at 5:57 am

It should! That is basically what Google wants you to do.
Eric Enge January 20, 2020 at 6:24 am

Hi Abdulhasb: Implementing AMP is a complicated topic! But you can read a lot more about it here: https://www.perficientdigital.com/insights/our-research/the-canonical-guide-to-amp
deborajohn January 22, 2020 at 1:20 am

Its a nice approch to create a AMP pages but some times it will create some issue and because of this lots of devices will respond not corretly.
Hittco Tools Limited March 10, 2020 at 7:46 am

Good blog with helpful information about the responsive websites.. Worth share.
Shahid Maqbool January 14, 2021 at 9:59 am

Nice one, Perficient but I have one question that why should we still care about our desktop site more than mobile people should develop there mobile site with mobile first approach
raiza February 18, 2022 at 5:40 am

In 2022, Mobile Friendly and responsive websites are a strong ranking factor to get the top ranking in SERP.
chatrine Wilson August 7, 2022 at 9:21 am

valuable post. “Avoids software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash” makes me evaluate all my post once again. Thanks a lot…!
webodoctor November 5, 2022 at 6:01 am

mobile seo friendly relates blog more valuable content very responsive so I can Wait you more relates this topic
AD April 1, 2024 at 2:59 am

Excellent insights from Gary Illyes on mobile optimization! It’s becoming increasingly clear that mobile-friendliness is not just a convenience but a crucial ranking factor. This reinforces the importance of responsive design for a seamless user experience across all devices.