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Google to debut tweaked search results prioritizing mobile-friendly sites tomorrow

Google Personal Search

Google is set to debut a reworked version of its search result ranking system tomorrow, Fortune reported today. The new rankings will place websites with mobile-friendly designs ahead of those that work best on desktop machines in search results.

The decision to make this change was prompted by the fact that over 60% of Google’s search traffic now comes from mobile devices, the company said. The modification was first announced in a post on Google’s Webmaster Central blog earlier this year.

Search results have undergone a few changes recently to help surface more mobile-friendly content. In October users started noticing a new icon being tested that indicated when a website wasn’t designed for mobile devices. That functionality was later switched out for an indicator that highlighted mobile-friendly sites.

The latest tweak to the search results page will now push those mobile-friendly sites to the top of the list ahead of others. A lawsuit related to Google’s attempts to reorganize rankings in this way eventually led to a court ruling that the company was free to do whatever it wanted with its search data.

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