WYGK has a large number of websites, and like many site operators, we were afraid of how the Google mobile search algorithm change on April 21 would affect our sites.

The change affects how sites are listed in search results on mobile phones. Sites that are mobile-friendly will appear higher in search results, and unfriendly sites will appear lower.

We examined traffic statistics on a number of sites that are mobile-friendly, as well as sites that are not (“unfriendly” sites). We looked at traffic for a week before the algorithm change, and a week after.

We found that the unfriendly sites suffered a 1.3% drop in traffic. However, the mobile-friendly sites also saw a drop in traffic of 0.4%. This could have been for reasons unrelated to the Google change.

The bottom line is that the algorithm change was certainly no mobile-geddon! The impact was actually very small.

However, Google and other search engines are likely to give increasing importance to mobile-friendliness over time. We are working to make all our sites mobile-friendly over the next few months.

See more details on our mobile-geddon results study.