It is rare that we get the chance to know of a Google Update in advance. It is even rarer that we are given the exact date (i.e. Mobilegeddon). And it is even rarer than that when we are given the exact metric which will influence the algorithmic update, much less that the algorithm works on a simple 1 or 0 (is mobile-friendly, is not mobile-friendly). And never in the history of Google have we been given all of that information plus how to tell, in advance, if a site meets that metric. It is truly the most open Google has ever been about a planned change in the algorithm, and their transparency regarding it is laudable.
So, given that information, we figured it would be fun to build a list of what sites are going to be most impacted on April 21st. Which sites are figuratively on the walking path to their mobile traffic execution in less than a week.
We decided to build a random list of 30,000 keywords from the random sample keyword tool offered by GrepWords and crawl their Google mobile rankings. We then identified on a URL by URL basis what pages were not marked as mobile-friendly by Google. Below is a list of the 100 that are looking to take the biggest hits, each of which had 10 or more keywords for which they would likely lose rankings. The traffic and value of the traffic potentially lost is lifted side by side. But first, some take-aways.
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A Mixed Bag
It is important to remember that some sites might have some mobile friendly pages, but not all mobile friendly. Many of the sites that will be hit the hardest are those that have only updated a section of their pages. In the list below, you will see several sites that have done a good job of fixing their home pages or some internal pages, but don’t have the site completely mobile-friendly. Moreover, many might have made their updates recently and are simply waiting for Google to update their crawl.A Government Slaughter
One thing of great concern is the preponderance of .gov sites that are likely to be impacted. Important, non-commercial sites are likely to suffer big losses on Tuesday, especially the nih.gov site and its subdomains. Over 50% of the .gov domains we encountered in mobile results were not mobile-friendly. They represent 21% of the 100 worst hit despite only accounting for 1.8% of the domains we have in our system. Tuesday could be a rough day for .gov sites in general.An Imperfect Algo
Another thing we noticed were plenty of sites that appear fully mobile friendly, but Google identifies them as not being. For example, Topps (www.topps.com), the popular baseball card manufacturer, has a gorgeous, responsive website which Google identifies as not mobile-friendly (both in their search results and their mobile friendly tool). I imagine a number of webmasters will be caught off guard by the nuances of Google’s mobile-friendly detection when they lose their rankings on the 21st.Support Sites Take a Hit
It seems like big brands are letting their support sites take the full brunt of the update. Godaddy, T Mobile, Quickbooks, Xerox, Sprint and many others are leaving their support sites out to dry. Without further adieu, here are the top 100 sites which will lose search traffic based on our 30,000 keyword crawl. DomainTrafficValueKeywordseonline.com | 632170.72 | 2429451.422 | 14 |
nmap.org | 70388.56 | 532673.7512 | 37 |
xnxx.com | 53900.31 | 1169071.955 | 20 |
armorgames.com | 42277.42 | 825235.1497 | 20 |
usmagazine.com | 39150.97 | 326072.0112 | 12 |
roanoke.com | 38104.56 | 161068.4112 | 15 |
cp.disneycareers.com | 29531.34 | 119774.3328 | 11 |
ahs.com | 25131.36 | 162605.4896 | 11 |
halhigdon.com | 24014.13 | 152897.0021 | 20 |
ct.gov | 23719.65 | 134631.083 | 14 |
eppicard.com | 21389.59 | 217837.5297 | 11 |
tax.ok.gov | 20320.63 | 128000.8493 | 11 |
nhlbi.nih.gov | 19202.49 | 115517.5028 | 48 |
appsupport.commonapp.org | 15837.84 | 359176.08 | 13 |
ghr.nlm.nih.gov | 15539.44 | 180759.3907 | 23 |
desitvbox.me | 14079.46 | 95606.1112 | 13 |
bmwusa.com | 13859.37 | 58620.537 | 16 |
geha.com | 10663.15 | 54884.977 | 13 |
nvcc.edu | 10136.63 | 66166.5504 | 12 |
regmovies.com | 8723.09 | 57007.8017 | 23 |
genome.gov | 8466.83 | 95917.553 | 19 |
nih.gov | 7531.69 | 56092.9697 | 13 |
wsba.org | 7319.38 | 155019.1654 | 14 |
acatoday.org | 7217.67 | 43457.2754 | 11 |
putlocker.is | 7068.29 | 55847.6933 | 32 |
questdiagnostics.com | 7023.93 | 51510.5261 | 14 |
aacn.nche.edu | 6938.15 | 62734.355 | 13 |
lwd.dol.state.nj.us | 6802.02 | 519939.1676 | 23 |
andersenwindows.com | 6725.01 | 59747.8866 | 27 |
coveredca.com | 6108.85 | 77910.6035 | 12 |
tax.virginia.gov | 5847.9 | 117248.996 | 18 |
personal.vanguard.com | 5759.2 | 43258.8605 | 27 |
support.godaddy.com | 5204.6 | 175585.478 | 26 |
azdot.gov | 4879 | 94445.386 | 14 |
arthritistoday.org | 4491 | 28301.8706 | 23 |
lung.org | 4425.94 | 30252.662 | 22 |
appliancerepair.net | 4106.15 | 50135.6793 | 11 |
treasurydirect.gov | 4094.71 | 30962.4585 | 16 |
lifetechnologies.com | 4016.57 | 33983.6051 | 24 |
ngm.nationalgeographic.com | 3998.59 | 15828.5944 | 16 |
hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu | 3987.75 | 31442.464 | 11 |
dish.com | 3968.04 | 40114.5195 | 41 |
hiring.monster.com | 3761.62 | 28304.0787 | 25 |
carolinashealthcare.org | 3627.06 | 37323.7982 | 27 |
pmi.org | 3552.15 | 60381.74 | 33 |
diabetes.niddk.nih.gov | 3426.85 | 18369.9876 | 13 |
eeoc.gov | 3404.92 | 38841.5201 | 15 |
aamc.org | 3359.74 | 27746.7032 | 26 |
beeradvocate.com | 3344.6 | 27775.4417 | 14 |
wikinvest.com | 3281.21 | 26323.8895 | 19 |
fantasynews.cbssports.com | 3202.34 | 43297.233 | 12 |
kongregate.com | 3179.58 | 32961.8467 | 13 |
books.wwnorton.com | 3105 | 29385.72 | 14 |
virginiadot.org | 3031.52 | 26451.4832 | 13 |
csrc.nist.gov | 2998.56 | 27670.0609 | 20 |
educationworld.com | 2914 | 24206.7013 | 14 |
dev.mysql.com | 2876.14 | 39068.745 | 19 |
filehippo.com | 2828.19 | 89481.9368 | 13 |
constitutioncenter.org | 2815.25 | 20716.0567 | 11 |
sephora.com | 2645.55 | 13727.3016 | 18 |
fbi.gov | 2596.21 | 23342.5675 | 30 |
sdcourt.ca.gov | 2410.5 | 24290.355 | 15 |
petfinder.com | 2299.03 | 25611.921 | 23 |
sat.collegeboard.org | 2280.15 | 23724.3312 | 24 |
oaklandcc.edu | 2238.3 | 9056.477 | 14 |
defense.gov | 2153.35 | 21616.646 | 16 |
uscourts.gov | 2108.05 | 25488.8232 | 16 |
support.t-mobile.com | 2100.04 | 21925.738 | 17 |
admissions.ucla.edu | 2064 | 21819.6096 | 15 |
tvlistings.timewarnercable.com | 2001.26 | 19570.6291 | 15 |
popalock.com | 1899.51 | 29952.8533 | 19 |
tepdl.dpi.wi.gov | 1896 | 18200.336 | 12 |
clarkcountynv.gov | 1886.98 | 16093.7086 | 17 |
healthecareers.com | 1830.58 | 30488.4878 | 19 |
medicaid.gov | 1826.37 | 13509.0136 | 12 |
avery.com | 1820.12 | 16207.3925 | 22 |
noticias.univision.com | 1807.52 | 20580.8272 | 12 |
chemocare.com | 1800.03 | 9096.561 | 16 |
checksunlimited.com | 1787.5 | 27597.619 | 12 |
sos.state.tx.us | 1781.57 | 10460.0393 | 15 |
cityofchicago.org | 1756.9 | 10495.2571 | 13 |
premiumoutlets.com | 1753.14 | 14418.0394 | 15 |
txdps.state.tx.us | 1711.28 | 9662.1329 | 14 |
lasvegas.com | 1697.29 | 13119.9079 | 15 |
udacity.com | 1620.48 | 18174.311 | 16 |
support.quickbooks.intuit.com | 1615.39 | 18044.7447 | 45 |
nces.ed.gov | 1594.73 | 9616.6974 | 12 |
direct.ed.gov | 1584.94 | 17769.0485 | 20 |
med-health.net | 1546.4 | 9909.6078 | 15 |
uship.com | 1530.22 | 10550.8078 | 17 |
apta.org | 1484.61 | 21363.2114 | 18 |
jeld-wen.com | 1432.85 | 14678.8975 | 11 |
mcafee.com | 1423.15 | 12116.0257 | 15 |
personalizationmall.com | 1420.42 | 8010.101 | 12 |
applevacations.com | 1420.41 | 11243.7807 | 17 |
safetysign.com | 1379.11 | 12248.0722 | 15 |
sixflags.com | 1368.97 | 5954.6392 | 15 |
universalcard.com | 1361.34 | 26360.5582 | 11 |
software.dell.com | 1336.3 | 11297.9145 | 14 |
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