Goolge: Mobile friendliness is now a ranking factor on Mobile

[Andy-Halliday]

John Mueller from Google has just confirmed:

Google has just confirmed that mobile friendliness is now a ranking factor for people on smartphones. The date it goes live is 24th April 2015.

There is a great presentation on the hangout - which will be available later to watch and once its available I will update with a link - but I would make sure your checking webmaster tools for any alerts / messages if you care about smartphone users.

What do people recommend, regarding responsive vs mobile site vs dynamic serving.

Is your site ready? What are you planning on doing since the update has been announced.

[GPainter]

It's been coming for a while, the mobile friendly tag was a giant indicator seen here - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/helping-users-find-mobile-friendly-pages.html

Also on that page is a mobile friendly test to make sure your site is ready to go its definitely worth checking out.

We tend to favor responsive design as it covers most sizes of phones and tablets and everything in between (phablet anyone?).

[Andy-Halliday]

I know its been coming for a while, but now there is a fixed date - but he did say it might take a few weeks to fully roll out. Google not giving a straight answer like in most of these hangouts

[GPainter]

hah that's an understatement!

[grobro]

I like the direction we're heading to --> Search Experience Optimization!