Sometimes, the best way to learn and take advantage of a popular trend is to follow your competition. We’ve seen people doing this all over the world because your competition can provide you with value information that otherwise would have been impossible to gain. I’ve seen this strategy recommended by small and big companies, bloggers, marketing companies, etc. When someone implements a strategy, especially a big company, it’s usually backed by huge research, meaning it’s been proven to achieve high results. In the latest search engine news, Bing will be following Google by tweaking their search engines to show mobile-friendly sites higher in the SERP’s. This change will have a dramatic effect for websites being displayed on Bing and an even bigger effect for those searching using Bing.
Statistically, Bing has stated the change will be positive because they’ve seen many people using their search on mobiles and smart-phones. With an increase in Bing mobile and smart-phone searches, it’s time to tweak their SERP’s to better fit this trend.
The Fine Balance Effect
Bing has publically stated they are NOT going to go crazy over this tweak because they have to consider a few things. You have to keep in mind that changing search results is very sensitive because you have to determine the effect it’ll have on quality information. For example, if a high quality website that provides awesome content is NOT mobile optimized, does this mean you should knock it down and boost poor quality content mobile websites? This is where you have a have a better idea of what matters and how the user search experience can be affected. In the end, it all comes down to quality of search results, especially the type of content they provide. Bing has taken a slight different approach when implementing this tweak to their algorithm.
First, Bing started to give mobile-friendly websites a bump last month, however, this is truly considered a trial period. They wanted to see the effect this change will have on people using their search engine. For example, after making the change, are people finding what they are looking for or has the bounced rate been increased? A high bounce rate shows the websites higher in the SERP after the mobile algorithm change are probably NOT providing the content they are looking for. They will keep testing for the next few months so they can gather enough data to fine tune their engine. However, they made something very clear…
It’s all a trial period and MOST likely, if a website is already ranking high in the SERP’s, whether it’s mobile-friendly or NOT, it’s going to remain at the top. This process will ensure you always have the best quality websites first so the user will be able to find quality information at all times. Not to mention, as long as you can provide quality content to the search, they’re more than happy to view a non-mobile compatible website to obtain the value. Here are some factors Bing considers NOT to be mobile-friendly…
- Small buttons
- Small links
- Small text
- Plug-ins that don’t work on device
Even though the complete update has NOT been rolled out, it’s expected to have it in full motion within a few months. They’ll make this a slow process so testing can be done along the way. The main objective is to increase the user search experience because WITHOUT users, you pretty much don’t have a search engine. Again, the main focus is on the quality of data being displayed after the implementation.