A new survey has shown that 64% of businesses in and around the Mansfield town centre area are not prepared for the imminent implementation of “mobile friendly” guidelines by major search engine Google – nicknamed “mobilegeddon” by many online.

The search giant, which is used by millions of people across the globe and is a source of website traffic for many companies across the town, has reacted to the significant jump in the number of people using smartphones to browse the internet by implementing a significant algorithm update that will favour websites which are easy to use on mobile, and punish those which are not.

Worryingly though, when local mobile-friendly website experts Locul.uk carried out a survey of 50 local business websites, they found that 64% – almost two thirds – were not set up to be mobile friendly, and were therefore at risk of being penalised by search engines, and potentially losing traffic.

Dave Hartshorne, managing director of Locul said “We were shocked to see that out of 50 Mansfield businesses, just 18 could be considered mobile friendly, and the 32 others ranged from being difficult to use, to near on impossible to use on mobile.

“Being mobile friendly is going to play a major part in dictating where your website ranks on search engines, and on how many people can use your website properly. If you’re not mobile friendly you could lose a big percentage of your online traffic or sales – something which no one wants.

“The new algorithm rolls out on April 21st, but the effects may not be immediate, so there is still time to take action and get mobile friendly.”

Some aspects to be considered regarding mobile friendliness includes page layout, size of text, and whether links are to close together to easily tap them. However the new guidelines will not pick and choose and it will simply be a blanket “Friendly” or “Not Friendly” decision based on several factors.

If you are worried or unsure about whether your website is mobile friendly, you can use this Google-authorised tool to find out. https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly