April 19, 2015: Long Island is home to many thousands of unique eateries, many of whose proprietors maintain websites to promote their businesses. Today, with an eye to estimating the local impact of the forthcoming changes to Google’s mobile algorithm announced on February 26th (AKA “mobilegeddon,”), Didt reports on a sample of 73 of them. The source for this group is the list of Long Island restaurants maintained on lipulse.com, a popular local directory site.
This study is the latest in our pre-4/21/15 series of evaluative surveys, which, to date, have included:
a) Major U.S. PR Firms (published 4/2/15)
b) Large-cap companies on Long Island (published 4/6/15)
c) Major New York-based advertising agencies (published 4/9/15)
d) Major U.S. charities (published 4/14/2015)
e) Major “white shoe” law firms in the U.S. (published 4/15/15)
f) Big CPA/accountancy firms (published 4/15/16).
g) Top-rated New York-area hospitals (published 4/17/2015)
h) S&P 100 companies (published 4/17/2015)
i) Lawyers on Long Island (published 4/17/2015)
j) Large pharmaceutical companies (published 4/17/2015)
Methodology
Didit ran each LI restaurant site through Google’s Mobile Friendly Test application page (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/) to see whether Google considers each site “mobile-friendly.” The specific error types causing any test failures were logged, and a screen capture was made of each report. Testing was begun and concluded on 4/17/2015.
Here is a summary of Didit’s findings:
1. 43 percent (41) of the 73 Long Island restaurant sites surveyed are fully “mobile-friendly” according to Google’s definition.
2. The most common errors seen on the 22 sites failing Google’s Mobile Friendly test were:
a). Links spaced too closely together to be easily clicked on mobile devices. 29 sites had this error.
b) Mobile viewports not being set correctly. This error can cause the site to render in less than 100 percent of mobile display space. 23 failing sites had this error.
c) Text being set at a size too small to read on mobile devices. 23 failing sites had this error.
d) Content wider than screen. This error can cause the site to become arbitrarily “cropped” along the horizontal dimension when viewed on a mobile device. 17 failing sites had this error.
e.) Blocking of resources necessary for the Googlebot to correctly parse the resources referenced by the web page. 9 sites had this error.
f) Incompatible plug-ins. The use of plug-ins (for example, Flash) that render well only on desktop devices is discouraged by Google’s mobile algorithm. 2 failing site had this error.
Analysis
Long Island restaurants have many ways of reaching people online. Some use listings on sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, and GrubHub for referral business. Others rely heavily on social media channels to promote their offerings. But many rely on organic search visibility to drive traffic to their sites. And as mobile traffic — and mobile searches — grow in importance, it will become more important for restaurants to devise sites which render well on mobile devices. Marketing research firm Emarketer.com has observed that “2015 will see mobile search reach the tipping point — the stage at which the majority of spend, organic traffic, and paid clicks comes from smart phones and tablets.”
The fact that a given Long Island restaurant site fails to pass Google’s Mobile Friendly Test does not mean that it will be invisible or inaccessible on mobile devices. But Google has indicated that poor showings on this test may result in less visibility in search results made from mobile devices. This means that restaurants that have mobile-optimized will be in a better position to grab more of this traffic.
Didit’s findings should not be cause for panic in the kitchen. In most cases the actual problems causing a “Fail” on Google’s Mobile Test can be quickly resolved — sometimes in under an hour. But because there are only a few remaining days to rectify these problems, restaurant management should take this issue seriously and make any corrections required in time for the 4/21/15 deadline.
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