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Mobilegeddon

The world's biggest search engine shakes up its algorithms

By LS

THE timing is awkward, to say the least. On April 21st Google, the world’s biggest online-search engine, will start implementing another major overhaul of its mobile-search algorithm. This is likely to penalise many websites, which is why some have called the change “mobilegeddon”. It comes less than a week after the European Union accused the firm's search engine of systematically giving favourable treatment to Google Shopping, its price-comparison service.

The latest change is not meant to discriminate against rivals, but to demote sites in Google’s mobile-search results that are not deemed “mobile-friendly”. That means, for instance, those that have text too small to read on a smartphone screen, or fiddly links too difficult to open with the tap of a finger, will be discriminated against. “As more people use mobile devices to access the internet, our algorithms have to adapt to these usage patterns,” Google wrote in a blog post in February.

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The change is indeed good news for consumers. It will push organisations to make their sites more usable on mobile devices: these now generate nearly half of all search traffic, according to Portent, a market-research firm. But it is bad news for many companies: 40% of the leading sites failed Google’s “mobile-friendly” test and may be down-ranked in search, Portent says. Ironically, the EU’s own website does not pass muster. Thankfully, The Economist's does.

Google regularly updates its algorithms, but big revisions are rare. In 2012, for instance, the firm made changes aimed to weed out misleading websites. Because of the uproar this move created, Google this time tried to soften the blow. It announced its plans more than two months ago and posted a step-by-step guide for developers to upgrade their site in time.

That a rather obscure technical change gets so much attention underlines how vital it is for online firms to rank highly in Google’s results. Sites that do not show up among the first hits are unlikely to be clicked on. But the revision of Google’s search algorithm also shows how difficult it will be to ensure that the firm treats its own and rival services equally, as the EU wants it to do. Any modification will produce losers and winners. Deciding whether each change is done to discriminate against competitors, or to improve search results, will often be no more than a judgement call.