Just weeks after Google announced its shift towards a more mobile-friendly search algorithm, Microsoft is following suit with its Bing platform. This move underscores the growing trend in tech to prioritize the ever increasing mobile user base.
This imminent change was highlighted in a blog post, where Microsoft announced its intention to favor mobile-friendly sites to cater to the surge in mobile search prominence. The announcement echoed Google’s recent shift in this direction, demonstrating the scale of influence that mobile users currently possess.
Microsoft is reshaping its approach to ranking Bing search results for mobile users, pushing websites that display more effectively on smaller screens to the fore. This significant adjustment seeks to cater to the; heightened use of mobile search, enhancing the user experience on the platform.
In their post, Microsoft delved into four crucial factors, which would potentially determine if a website would gain preferential positioning or not. The first, navigation, emphasizes that menus, buttons, and links on the page should be large enough and adequately spaced to support touch-based navigation.
Images can be a helpful demonstration of these factors at work. As shown in an accompanying illustration, the mobile-friendly page incorporates large, easy-to-tap and distinct navigational elements. Meanwhile, the non-mobile-friendly page, shown for comparison, has hyperlinks too close to each other; posing a risk for inadvertent clicks from mobile users.
The second key factor identified was readability, referring to the importance of having an optimal font size to negate the need for zooming by the reader. Following this was, scrolling, which suggests the content should fit the device width to prevent tedious horizontal navigation. The final factor listed was compatibility. Pages containing flash content, for instance, are often incompatible with iOS devices, drastically reducing their reach and usability.
Research by SmartInsights indicates the necessity of these shifts in search algorithms. Apparently, 80% of internet users are now smartphone owners. The rapid adaptation of search engines is therefore a response to this growth and the rise in searches originating from mobile devices. Moreover, with the advent of wearables, the trend for mobile usage is only expected to grow, as depicted in the graph inserted above.
Looking at the bigger picture, Google still holds the largest share of the internet search market. As a report by StatCounter shows, Bing commands about 6% of the US search market while Google dominates with about 83%. Yahoo holds their own with a 10% share as of August 2014.
It’s not much different in technologically advanced African countries like Nigeria. Here, the Google search engine enjoys a staggering 93% market dominance. The same trend is apparent in Egypt, where Google held 96% of the market share against Yahoo’s 2.3% last year.
Coming to internet browsers, Google still leads the pack. Google accounts for about 67% of searches from US devices, while Microsoft trails behind at 20%, followed by Yahoo at 10%.
While overall dominance in the market still rests with Google, these substantial shifts towards a more mobile-friendly approach by the likes of Bing emphasize the significant role mobile users play in shaping today’s online experience. Today, the competition isn’t just about who commands more searches, but who provides the ultimate user-friendly experience, especially for mobile users.