Like I said before, everyone is getting ready for the April 21st date when Google is launching their mobile friendly algorithm but Google News publishers are asking, do we need to prepare as well?
A Google News Help thread has a publisher asking if mobile-friendly factors will also apply to searchers on Google News on their mobile devices? If someone searches for news in Google, will Google rank mobile-friendly publishers better in Google News or not yet?
Also, will it also impact the "In The News" section of the web mobile search result? I do assume it will impact the "in the news" section simply because any web site can show up there. But more importantly, for publishers, will it impact Google News ranking specifically?
No Googler has responded to the thread yet but honestly, all news sites need to be mobile-friendly. There is a ton of mobile users out there, consuming news on their mobile devices, and going mobile friendly for content sites is sometimes a lot easier than for e-commerce or custom platforms.
I'll try to get a comment from Google on this specific question.
Forum discussion at Google News Help.
Update: Google's Stacie Chan said not yet in terms of if Google News is impacted by this mobile-friendly algorithm.
