• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, May 6, 2015

As reflected by Google’s recent wide-ranging revamp of its search algorithm in favor of mobile-friendly sites, more and more search traffic is coming from smartphones and tablets -- and this week the search giant confirmed that mobile is now bigger than desktop in some key markets.

According to Google executive Jerry Dischler, speaking at a digital advertising conference on Tuesday, the volume of searches coming from smartphones has surpassed desktop in 10 countries, including the U.S. and Japan. Dischler didn’t name the other countries, but previous reports showed that mobile search had already passed desktop in India as early as 2013, and it seems likely that a similar pattern has been operating in other developing countries that have “leapfrogged” directly to mobile (mostly skipping desktop) in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

Of course the shift from desktop to mobile search has been some time coming in the U.S. as well. Last year Google exec Matt Cutts revealed that mobile was poised to surpass desktop in the near future, and back in 2012 BIA Kelsey forecast that the switch would come sometime this year.

In March of this year, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Zineb Ait Bahajji revealed that Google’s revamp of its algorithm in favor of mobile-friendly sites would have a bigger impact on search results than previous overhauls like Google Panda and Google Penguin. And it has already had a significant impact on search results, according to a recent report by Searchmetrics, which tracked the changes in its measure of Mobile SEO Visibility.

Google defines mobile-friendly sites as having four criteria: they must avoid software that is not common on mobile devices, like Flash; use text that is readable without zooming; size content to the screen so users don’t have to scroll horizontally or zoom; and place links far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped.