Bing will be following Google’s lead in boosting the search rankings of websites that are mobile friendly. It isn’t exactly taking the Google approach in penalising sites that are not mobile friendly, but it will be favouring them when displaying results.
More users are accessing the internet from mobile devices, and this has become a big deal for search engines who want to deliver relevant content that is easy to read from a smaller display. Microsoft announced the impending change back in November 2014, and is now getting around to implementing it.
Part of change involves tagging search results with the “Mobile Friendly” keyword that tells users that a website will display properly on their smartphones. The tag appears on both the browser and mobile version of Bing; which is a nice touch, although a little redundant on computers.
Other considerations taken when determining the mobile friendliness are the size and location of hyperlinks, readability, scrolling, and presence of compatibility issues. The compatibility includes things like flash content (that doesn’t work on iOS) and dependence on browser plugins to make the site work.
The new rankings haven’t taken effect yet, and Microsoft has not provided an official timeline yet. That being said, this is just another step towards making the internet a friendlier place for mobile users.
[Source: Bing]
