Mobilegeddon?

In follow up to the "Tirerack's new website suXX0rs" thread, can somebody please distill the whole Google mobilegeddon issue down to a few simple words for me?

I understand that teh Googlies changed their search results ranking algorithm to favor sites that are mobile-friendly. Does this mean sites that also maintain a mobile-specific version, or does it mean that the main site itself must be set up for the small screen with no mobile version?

Our company is in the process of a much-needed website update, and I want to be as informed as possible. Thanks.

All I can say is that Google search results are really starting to suck badly... not that any of the other search engines are any better...

Something something power something something absolutely

http://searchengineland.com/tomorrow-is-mobilegeddon-are-you-ready-for-the-google-mobile-friendly-update-219291

This might tell you what you want to know.

Simple: google put out a notice that if sites don't render well on mobile devices that rankings would drop. There is speculation of whether the drop would be from mobile results or overall.

Some people got really worried about it and made decisions to make major changes to websites. My own speculation was that they just wanted another reason to drop low quality sites in their rankings and that it mainly had to do with spammy sites.

foxtrapper wrote: http://searchengineland.com/tomorrow-is-mobilegeddon-are-you-ready-for-the-google-mobile-friendly-update-219291 This might tell you what you want to know.

OK, thank you for that link.

So, as long as I'm still searching from not-a-mobile-device, nothing changes?

Correct. And if you're searching from a mobile device, the results will be biased towards mobile-friendly sites.