Google has shed a little more light on its upcoming mobile-friendly algorithm, which is due to launch on 21 April.
The new details emerged in two separate Google+ Hangouts broadcast on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.
In Tuesday's Hangout, titled 'Q&A session for mobile-friendly ranking change', we learned:
- There is no spectrum of 'mobile friendliness'. Pages are either mobile-friendly or not, as determined by the presence or absence of a mobile-friendly label in mobile search results.
- The algorithm starts rolling out on 21 April, but may take up to "a week or so" to roll out completely.
- If a page has a mobile-friendly label, then it is considered unequivocally mobile friendly. The easiest way to check this is to use Google's Mobile Friendly Test tool, or simply look your site up in mobile search. The mobile usability report in Webmaster Tools may not be entirely up-to-date, whilst the Mobile Friendly Test tool should match up to live search results.
In the second Hangout, 'English Google News & Webmaster Central office hours hangout', Google News community manager Stacie Chan revealed that the algorithm will not affect Google News results at launch.
She did say they were "exploring" whether or not to implement it, but couldn't give any timings, or indeed confirm that it would happen at all.
For a full rundown of what we know so far, read our recent blog post.
Hat tip to Search Engine Land for summarising the new learnings here and here.
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