[alexvr]

Kinda lame and not in line with what made PageRank so successful. Google should "not be evil" and have the decency to be as neutral as possible, allowing legitimate clicks and backlinks to judge the relevance of a website. If people can't stand websites that aren't tailored to mobile devices, they will simply leave and find another. I personally don't mind viewing a 20-year-old website through a little mobile browser if the content is satisfactory.

If they are to change anything in this area, they should simply put a little distinguishing checkmark by a mobile-friendly search result, but leave the rankings unchanged. And this should obviously be the case only when a user is on a mobile device.

[magicalist]

> If people can't stand websites that aren't tailored to mobile devices, they will simply leave and find another

Yes, and the fifth time in a row I have to do that I stop thinking "these are shitty websites" and start thinking "this is a shitty search engine".

Search engines are inherently not neutral. Why should a spammy site, filled with ads and ripped-off content from different sites, not score higher if it has higher PageRank? Because, again, that's not what you as a user wants. That's far more important for what a "good search engine" is than some idea of neutrality based entirely on how many other sites link to a page.

Note that there absolutely be a balance here, but that seems to be exactly what is going on. This is just one more weight on the ranking, same as their earlier adjustment for site load speed.

[hussong]

I think your comment is especially true when you think less of websites that make money and are actively maintained and more about the wealth of information that's out there on old websites that haven't been touched for years -- but may still be valuable resources.