Today is the day known to many as “Mobilegeddon.”  It’s the day that changes to Google’s algorithms for mobile searches go into effect. If you haven’t heard the news you are probably thinking “so what?” This is a huge deal for everyone because it will affect what businesses, products and services come up in our online searches when using your phone.

The new Google algorithm will start favoring mobile-friendly websites (ones with large text, easy-to-click links, and that resize to fit whatever screen they’re viewed on) and ranking them higher in search. Websites that aren’t mobile-friendly will get demoted to Google’s version of Purgatory. Google states the reason it is doing this is because it wants consumers to “find content that’s not only relevant and timely, but also easy to read and interact with on smaller mobile screens.”

This will have a tremendous impact on small businesses that have not made the necessary changes to their websites in time for Mobilegeddon. Thousands of small businesses will be surprised by the significant drop in visitors to their websites after today.  This will be especially true of those businesses that rely heavily on people finding them through localized search- like if someone typed “Medspa in Atlanta or Dentist in Vinings” into Google from their phone- they could see a decrease in foot traffic as a result of the update. This is going to affect millions of sites on the web.