O'Dwyer's website Google mobile-friendly testodwyerpr.com didn't pass Google's mobile-friendly test

Only 55 of 96 websites belonging to the PR firms in O’Dwyer’s 2015 rankings meet Google’s mobile-friendly criteria, according to a study by Didit Communications.

Each website address was entered into Google’s test page.

Of the 45 firms in the New York ranking, 42% had websites that are mobile-friendly.

The most common errors are:

• Text set at a point size too small to read on mobile devices
• Links spaced too closely together to be easily clicked
• Mobile viewports not set correctly
• Use of incompatible plug-ins
• Site content set wider than screen making it invisible
• Blocking access to resources used by Google’s web robots

Mobilegeddon is coming

Stephen BaldwinBaldwin

In late February Google announced effective April 21 websites that fail to provide a good mobile browsing experience will suffer from reduced search visibility on those devices.

This doesn’t mean though that the failing websites will not appear.

“Because agencies have less than a month to pass the test, it’s incumbent upon agency management to take this issue seriously,” Didit’s Editor-in-Chief Stephen Baldwin stresses.

Baldwin points out that according to Emarketer.com, “2015 will see mobile search reach the tipping point -- the stage at which the majority of spend, organic traffic, and paid clicks comes from smartphones and tablets.”

Baldwin acknowledges that while the deadline is fast approaching, problems causing a “fail” can be solved easily in most cases and Google’s own Webmaster Tools provides helpful resources to identify and eliminate mobile-friendly issues.

Didit will continue to run tests up to the deadline to see whether improvements are being made to the websites studied.