Local Archives - GRIDNYC

Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test

While Google is still testing and fine-tuning its Local search page’s info structure and User Interface (UI), it is obvious that Google values “Mobile-friendly” as one of the major website attributes because it will offer a much better User Experience (UX) on mobile devices.

On a 11/18/2014 post by Google: A mobile-optimized site will get a “mobile-friendly” label on mobile search results, “We see these labels as a first step in helping mobile users to have a better mobile web experience. We are also experimenting with using the mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal” (source: Helping users find mobile-friendly pages)

To test if your website is “Mobile-friendly” by Google’s standard

Simply type your site’s URL in Google’s Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool, it will give you indication if the URL meets the requirement, it may even provide extra findings for you to address.

For example, below is a screenshot of our website homepage testing result:

MOZ survey result: 2014 Local search factors

In 2013 Google released Local carousels and New Google Maps, in June 2014, released Google My Business, combined with the Pigeon algo update; these are all major factors changing the Local search landscape.

moz.com conducted an in-depth survey of industry experts and published The 2014 Local Search Ranking Factors result.

Below is a chart from that 9/15/2014 report which provides a summary: