Not All Black and White: New Google Algorithm Bigger than Panda or Penguin

Two of Google’s more recent algorithm updates, Penguin and Panda, really managed to shake up the marketing world. As the black and white beasts rampaged through the search pages, many companies deeply felt their effects, with some receiving a positive boost in rankings, and others, like online auction giant eBay, really feeling the pain. As we so often witness with Google’s updates, some companies are still trying to boost their rankings back to where they once were.

Though many of these updates have the nasty habit of leaving businesses and their marketing teams a little bit frustrated, Google does produce them for good reason. As with any upstanding company, Google wishes to provide its customers with the best services and products available, including what they find through search. By creating and unleashing these web-crawling creatures, Google is helping to ensure its customers–those of you performing searches every day–are presented with the best of the internet when they need answers.

Now, a bigger, badder algorithm is looming on the horizon. Dubbed “MobileGeddon” by SearchEngineLand.com, this search update–which will roll out on April 21–is unique in that it targets only mobile searches, changing how websites rank for users on the go. Since nearly 50% of all Google searches are performed on mobile devices, with a vast majority of marketing gurus expecting that number only to grow, many industry leaders and Google enthusiasts have expected this one for a while now.

What can you do to prepare your company and your clients for this new algorithm, which has yet to be given its spirit animal? First and foremost, if you haven’t created a responsive site layout, you need one–now. Once you’ve completed that all-important first step, go through your site and clean up what you can. The appearance and performance of sites decline over time, so anything you can do to improve your load time and graphics quality should be prioritized. Google Developer Tools offers a handy test to analyze whether your site is mobile-friendly or if it needs some help, which can be found here.

While some of Google’s algorithm updates do cause confusion, they are ultimately all geared toward perfecting the user experience. Keep an eye on your customers’ behaviors, account for their needs, and you should have an idea of when your site may need a little fine tuning to keep its ranking high. When you’re ready to embark on an incisive, effective content and search engine marketing campaign, contact Elephant Ear at (321) 537-2649.