In an apparent bid to improve user experience Google are testing displaying new icons in SERPs to indicate if a site is mobile friendly or not. 

Mobile friendly indicators in search results

Reports from around the world have been coming in over the last week of some new icons displaying in searches from mobile devices. Some users are reporting seeing a small green "mobile icon" next to mobile friendly website results in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) whilst other users are reporting seeing a small grey "mobile unfriendly icon" in SERPs. These results are far from wide spread, with no reports of the testing having been rolled out to New Zealand users yet, multiple tests from the GFM offices have yet to show either of the icons.

Why is Google doing this?

Google, along with any web developer worth their salt, has understood for some time that more and more users are turning to their mobile device when looking for products and services and further more these users don't have time for slow unreadable sites when they are on the go. Google are in the business of providing the best possible results for the end user and this appears to be the next logical step in giving the searcher a more informed choice about what sites they choose to visit.

So what is "mobile friendly"?

 A lot of factors come into play when you start talking about what is and isn't mobile friendly and this new feature Google are testing certainly has some tweaking to do before they roll this out worldwide. Some of the more obvious ones are;

• Does the site load without to much delay?
• Can you browse the site information without resizing the screen? think pinch and zoom?
• Are the links and buttons big enough to easily click with a fat finger?
• Is the text of a reasonable size and easy to read?
• Can you navigate from page to page with ease?

And then of course there is the dreaded Flash Player.... Flash was all the rage a few years back, it seemed like a great way to produce dynamic content for web pages. By today's standards it is slow, unreliable and has all kinds of security flaws, which is why Apple has refused to support it from the start of their iOS and now and Android has also dropped support from newer versions of its OS. If you still have Flash elements on your website, it's time for an upgrade.

What is the solution?

A well designed and engineered Responsive Website is the only true solution when it comes to a mobile first approach.

Have you seen any new icons in your SERPs?

I'd love to hear about it, especially if your in New Zealand or Australia so drop us a comment below.