Google mobile search: the evolution of the Google search

For many years, the mobile search played a slightly more minor role in the Google universe. Then came the great mobile boom. Of course, this sudden growth in the use of mobile devices didn’t go unnoticed by the search engine giant residing in Mountain View, California in the USA. And in 2015, Google saw the first official shift of power as mobile devices finally registered more Google searches than stationary desktops.

The mobile search has been constantly changing since then. Using the standard desktop search as a model, Google’s mobile search has become increasingly faster and more precise, improving the company’s ability to answer the queries of mobile users. This has become more and more challenging. In recent years, the smartphone has become an integral part of everyday life and this means user habits have changed quite drastically from what they were like five or ten years ago. This changing reliance on smartphones has put increased expectations on search engines – user experience and usability are two of the most important factors for Google’s mobile search. So Google isn’t just having to constantly prepare new mobile advert formats, it’s also got to contend with innovative features and continual testing to try and get the Google app and the mobile search engine up to the standards of the desktop staple.

Google wasn’t caught off guard by the mobile boom – it had recognised the increasing potential and importance of the mobile world long ago. The Californian company used its strong market presence to secure a central role in the mobile internet industry. By the time the Android operating system for mobile devices came to market in 2008, this position of strength was consolidated. Over 80% of mobile devices now run with Google’s operating system.

But obtaining this system was just the basis; Google had many other avenues to explore. Numerous applications like Google Maps or the Chrome mobile browser became available for smartphones. To promote these products, Google created the Google Play Store, which can also be integrated into a search engine. Before long, a whole smartphone created with built-in Google products as applications and functions came onto the market in the form of the Nexus One. Tablets and updated versions soon followed. This final part of the strategy demonstrated that Google wanted to make the term ‘mobile internet’ inseparable from its own brand name and products. In addition to its powerful position in the mobile industry and all its new products and services, there’s one thing Google has achieved which might just be the most significant of all: access to valuable user data that has helped to improve their services significantly and develop their mobile advertising model.

Since its foundation in 1998, the Google search has been hallmarked by its continuous development and change. Designers and developers at Google work daily on the optimisation of the user experience, with many of their new ideas resulting in tests carried out on a chosen subject group of Google users. Some changes are more obvious, while some are more subtle and conspicuous, meaning that updates have had varying effects on the online marketing industry. In our overview of the Google evolution, we’ve summed up the milestones achieved throughout the Google story so far. In recent years, mobile search results have become more and more like their desktop cousins. Although there’s no huge difference between the content offered by each, the mobile search has to be handled differently because user experience and user behaviour are very different when users switch between desktops and smartphones.

Another example of built-in smartphone technology that the Google search takes advantage of is the microphone and voice recognition software. Whether it’s Siri on the iPhone or the in-house voice aid Google Now for Android devices – if you’d prefer not to type, you can always communicate with your phone via the voice recognition tool. Voice searches are becoming more and more common, particularly across the pond. According to official figures from Google, voice searches via mobile devices make up around 20% of the overall search queries in America, and they're starting to become a feature in the UK as well. Digital language assistants aren’t just becoming more important for Google searches either – they’re more and more common across devices used at home. Voice Search and Voice Control are interesting topics that SEO experts should pay attention to moving forward.

More and more mobile searches in the past year have featured a new icon: a little lightning bolt and the letters ‘AMP’. AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages and stands for extra quick content loading time. By the end of 2015, Google had launched this open source initiative to promote more streamlined content. At first, AMP was only found in headline areas, but now the AMP icon is commonplace in standard web searches too. The idea behind this is that streamlined content is lighter and so improves the performance of the mobile end device. By reducing amounts of code and using a Content Delivery Network (CDN), pages load up to four times as fast and only need around a tenth of their previous data volume.

According to Google, around 150 million AMP documents have already been indexed, with around 4 million new ones being added every week. AMP is likely to be the new standard for mobile websites in future, but at present they have no influence on search engine ranking. But, given their improved speed and lowered loading times, mobile websites with AMP are sure to profit from better ranking in the near future.

In some fields, web operators can provide the Google Bot with additional information through structured data, for example with recipes or events. This information is then displayed as a preview in the search engine results pages in the form of a ‘snippet’. This means that the user gets all the relevant information they need in one snapshot – and Rich Snippets are easily distinguishable from normal search results. Rich Cards are even clearer, with a beautiful structure and presentation that appeals to users straight away.

These new optical designs should improve user experience even further and enable an optimal presentation of content. Rich Cards present content in the form of an informational carousel that users see at the top of the mobile search before other standard results.

At present, Rich Cards are reserved for recipes and films – but the plan is to roll them out for other types of content as well, which is particularly important news for e-commerce and marketing experts. Mark-ups like products and events will surely have their own Rich Cards category presentation in the not-to-distant future. At the same time as their new Rich Cards creation, Google has published an update to the testing tools for structured data.