The Rise of ‘Mobilegeddon’
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/04/21/401269739/googles-new-search-algorithm-stokes-fears-of-mobilegeddon
Last April, Google released a new algorithm for their search engines, this time heavily favoring sites that are considered ‘mobile friendly’ when searches were conducted on a mobile device. This makes sense, as people searching via mobile devices will prefer to see sites that are readable and readily accessible on their devices. However, using Google’s very own mobile readiness verification tester, studies have found that over 10,000 of the webs most popular sites do not pass as mobile friendly. This means that they will not appear as highly in the search results even if they are the most relevant result to the users search.
Google assuaged these concerns saying that sites with spectacular content will still appear highly in search results if there are not mobile friendly. They also mentioned that their criteria for ‘mobile readiness’ is very fair, citing things like ensuring shape and size are kept consistent in the transition to mobile. Some people are concerned that Google has so much power over the web with their search engine, they could alter the algorithm to favor their own products. However a change that simply allows for mobile readiness to hold weight does not seem to follow that logic. There is also concern that websites failing to categorize as “mobile ready” won’t make the push to become mobile ready. It is costly to redesign a website, and many of these top ranking sites have apps for mobile users to use. Even though this is true, Google’s new algorithm does not take this into account and still places them lower in search relevance.
From a network perspective, it would be interesting to delve deeper into how this algorithm actually works. In class we discussed the page-rank algorithm which uses the amount of in-links and the quality of these links to determine the relevance of a site. However, as this article suggests, factors outside of the page-rank algorithm account for the relevance of a site. While it is known that mobile readiness has to do with a given sites rank, what else could have an effect? Perhaps Google’s best kept secret lies within the answer to this question. We discussed the importance of the site rankings on search engines, and following the continuously updated algorithms churned out by these companies will continue to be highly relevant to the study of networks.