Google is sending out warning notifications to owners of websites that are not mobile-friendly.  Already a feature of our SEO audit, testing for mobile compatibility is important because Google is checking – and if your website does not display well on a mobile device, Google will adjust mobile search rankings for your website appropriately.

Bottom line – If your website is mobile-friendly, awesome!  If not, your rankings in mobile search will suffer.  Not good.

What can you do?

Test your website for mobile compatibility (a verified Google Webmaster Tools account is required).

Follow Google’s guidelines to build a mobile-friendly website.

If your website is powered by a modern content management system there are probably some add-on features (plugins) available to adjust your pages when viewed on a mobile device.  Read more about mobile customizations here.

An actual notification message from Google is shown below.  Website links have been changed to protect the innocent.

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Fix mobile usability issues found on http://www.example.com/
To: webmaster of http://www.example.com/
Google systems have tested 195 pages from your site and found that 100% of them have critical mobile usability errors. The errors on these 195 pages severely affect how mobile users are able to experience your website. These pages will not be seen as mobile-friendly by Google Search, and will therefore be displayed and ranked appropriately for smartphone users.
Fix this now:

1. Find problematic pages
   View a report of the non-mobile-friendly pages found on your site, and the issues discovered. Inspect mobile issues
2. Learn about mobile-friendly design
   There are a variety of techniques you can use to make your site mobile-friendly. Specifically, look for information about the issues brought up in Webmaster Tools. Follow our guidelines
3. Fix mobile usability issues on your site
   Fix the issues preventing your site from being mobile-friendly.

Not sure how to proceed?

• If your site is built with software like WordPress or Joomla (also known as “Content Management System” or CMS), read the easy steps to make a CMS mobile-friendly.
• Read more about building mobile-friendly websites on our Developer site.
• Ask more questions in our Webmaster Central Forum —mention message type [WNC-451500]