Google Latest Algorithmic Change about Https & Mobile Friendliness

[mozexpone]

How effective did it prove for anyone with the latest algorithmic change google search engine made for being mobile friendly and using https (valid ssl certificate). I see a good change being made under the ecommerce category for sites being used for online shopping. Let me know if anyone observes a major difference.

[TomRayner]

Hi Joshua

From personal experience (won't cite external sources here) working with a number of sites:

The mobile friendly update - I've definitely seen an impact in mobile search.  I think there's quite a clear handicap in mobile search if the webpage you're trying to rank for isn't mobile friendly (while desktop search looks to be unaffected).

Regarding SSL - I'm yet to be convinced.  I've yet to see a strong correlation - or any correlation for that matter - between websites switching to HTTPS and seeing their rankings improved.  I've followed my own sites, competitor sites, and industry trackers like SerpWoo on this and I don't think the impact is quite there (yet).  In fact, I've seen more cases of companies migrating to SSL seeing rankings drop than improve, because of the problems they have faced in the migration.

In short:

Mobile Friendly - I do see this as a must for SEO.

SSL - treat it as a business decision, not an SEO one.  If you're looking to integrate an onsite payment solution, for example, it makes sense for the site to be SSL.

[Highland]

Normally Google is making changes to their algorithm and it's SEOs who are trying to convince you that certain changes are beneficial. But full-site SSL is the exact reverse. Google says it's a (small) ranking factor and SEOs are the ones remaining to be convinced. Nobody has proven any kind of serious boost and I'm still dubious that it's a good decision from a pure SEO standpoint.

If you want to do your own experiment, use Cloudflare. It can serve up a SSL version of your site without a certificate (and thus free) and you can do your own test to see if full SSL is worth it to you without having to make any serious configuration changes (and you can always turn it off if you want)

[PolanigGT]

Mobile friendliness does impact the search rankings but specifically on mobile platforms. You can see a quite apparent difference in rankings in desktop search and mobile search for same keywords. So, if you rank high in desktop searches doesn't guarantee high rankings in mobile searches as well if you don't have a mobile friendly website.

As far as HTTPS is concerned so it has nothing to do with your search rankings, it is just make your website secure. So, if you accept online payments, you should go with SSL to keep your website secure and safe. However, as Tom Roberts mentioned, you might see some drops in rankings while you migrate your website to SSL due to migration technicalities

[LesleyPaone]

Is this not spam? It has contextual links that have nothing to do with the topic. We get these all the time on the forum I help manage.

[MattRoney]

Looks like the question is legitimate and has generated some good discussion, but I've gone ahead and removed those links.