Helping users easily access content on mobile

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

It's been a while since we published this blog post. Some of the information may be outdated (for example, some images may be missing, and some links may not work anymore). Check out our documentation on this topic instead.

January 10, 2017 update: Starting today, pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as high. As we said, this new signal is just one of hundreds of signals that are used in ranking and the intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content. Please head to the webmaster forums if you have any questions.

In Google Search, our goal is to help users quickly find the best answers to their questions, regardless of the device they're using. Today, we're announcing two upcoming changes to mobile search results that make finding content easier for users.

Simplifying mobile search results

Two years ago, we added a mobile-friendly label to help users find pages where the text and content was readable without zooming and the tap targets were appropriately spaced. Since then, we've seen the ecosystem evolve and we recently found that 85% of all pages in the mobile search results now meet this criteria and show the mobile-friendly label. To keep search results uncluttered, we'll be removing the label, although the mobile-friendly criteria will continue to be a ranking signal. We'll continue providing the Mobile Usability report in Search Console and the Mobile-Friendly Test to help webmasters evaluate the effect of the mobile-friendly signal on their pages.

Helping users find the content they're looking for

Although the majority of pages now have text and content on the page that is readable without zooming, w