Googles new rules for websites

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ronw

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#171653 26-Apr-2015 20:02

Google is now enforcing new requirements on websites that do not comply with their requirements to be viewable on mobile phones as well as computer browsers.
This is going to make a major impact on many websites that will not meet these new requirements. The penalty for non compliance is that Google will push your site down the rankings in searches.
The alternative for many is a complete re-write often having to duplicate pages one for mobiles and one for desktop.
I am curious if this will affect many people who do their own websites.

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#1291875 26-Apr-2015 20:17

Well it would make sense if you were searching from a mobile platform. It isn't relevant if you're searching for something from a standard browser.

Behodar

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#1291904 26-Apr-2015 20:54

rendezvous: It isn't relevant if you're searching for something from a standard browser.

Aha! That's why it doesn't seem to have affected my employer's site; searches from a desktop browser still return the site. The vast majority (93%) of our users are on desktops so there's no real drive for us to make a "mobile" site at this point. It's good to see that Google's change won't affect the majority of our users.

ronw

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#1291919 26-Apr-2015 21:03

Except if you web pages designed for normal browser dont pass Googles test it will push your search index down the rankings. This means that anyone searching for something that is on your site will possibly never see your site returned as the results will not include your site in the top rankings.
You can test your websites here https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
If it fails you can kiss goodbye to high search rankings

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DonGould

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#1291920 26-Apr-2015 21:04

ronw: The alternative for many is a complete re-write often having to duplicate pages one for mobiles and one for desktop.
I am curious if this will affect many people who do their own websites.

This is why we build sites with tools like Wordpress that allow content to translate - see: http://www.u3amana.org.nz/

Compare between desktop and mobile. It's all done just with the right template software and wordpress plugins.

More and more developers are using tools like BootStrap too. These resize content to make it mobile friendly.

You don't need to have two versions of your site at all if you just use the right tools in the first place.

http://www.w3schools.com/bootstrap/ If you are in charge of a web site then you should take an hour and read this. Sure, you might not understand it all, but it gives you some good idea when empowering your development team.

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jarledb

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#1291921 26-Apr-2015 21:04

There are more and more people accessing the web from mobile devices, which is why Google has decided to do this change.

If you are seeing 7% coming from mobile today, its a safe bet you will see less in the future - because you won't be visible for them when searching in Google. Then you can be happy you didn't waste any money on making your website responsive/mobile friendly, while your competitors with mobile friendly sites will be laughing all the way to the bank (getting all the new visitors that don't see your businesses site anymore).

The number of people using the web from mobile is only going to increase, and Googles change will make anyone not catering to these users loose out.

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jarledb

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#1291928 26-Apr-2015 21:10

ronw: Except if you web pages designed for normal browser dont pass Googles test it will push your search index down the rankings.

This is incorrect. Its only for searches done from mobile devices that this ranking signal will affect.

Quote from Google: "Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. "

Reference: Googles Webmaster Central blog

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1eStar

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#1291935 26-Apr-2015 21:18

Let me see. I sold my desktop computer 10 years ago. My last computer with a desktop died 5 years ago. Since then I've been living in the post - PC era. This can't come soon enough.

Edit : and ironically the pages that irk me the most that I *have* to go borrow some full computer, are Google's. It's impossible to share calendars or access gmail settings properly without the full browser.

Edit 2 punctuation

Behodar

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#1291979 26-Apr-2015 21:55

jarledb: If you are seeing 7% coming from mobile today, its a safe bet you will see less in the future - because you won't be visible for them when searching in Google. Then you can be happy you didn't waste any money on making your website responsive/mobile friendly, while your competitors with mobile friendly sites will be laughing all the way to the bank (getting all the new visitors that don't see your businesses site anymore).

It's a good thing that we don't have any competitors then! :)

In all seriousness, next time we "redo" the site we'll make it scale better to mobile, but who knows when that'll be...

Edit: With that said, it does seem a bit backwards. In the old days we were stuck with WAP sites. Then smartphones came along - I remember Steve Jobs proudly stating that Safari gives you the "full Web" in all its glory. Now Google wants us making WAP sites again.

DonGould

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#1292017 26-Apr-2015 22:10

Behodar: Edit: With that said, it does seem a bit backwards. In the old days we were stuck with WAP sites. Then smartphones came along - I remember Steve Jobs proudly stating that Safari gives you the "full Web" in all its glory. Now Google wants us making WAP sites again.

lol Nicely said.

It does seem a bit wack, but it's really just pushing proper content and presentation separation.

I don't design two sets of content, I just set everything up to present properly where ever. This is stuff I was doing when designing applications in VB 3 two decades ago.

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Behodar

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#1292018 26-Apr-2015 22:12

DonGould: I don't design two sets of content, I just set everything up to present properly where ever.

That, I do agree with. I thought it was stupid when our current design ended up being a fixed 940 pixels wide, although for the opposite reason: On my 1920x1200 display it just has a mass of grey on either side of the page.

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#1292021 26-Apr-2015 22:15

Google says that GeekZone is mobile friendly. For me that doesn't matter, as I prefer to use a laptop to view it. Geekzone is awful on my partner's tablet.

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DonGould

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#1292023 26-Apr-2015 22:19

DarthKermit: Google says that GeekZone is mobile friendly. For me that doesn't matter, as I prefer to use a laptop to view it. Geekzone is awful on my partner's tablet.

ya I'm not a big fan of gz mobile.

Whirlpool.net.au just did an upgrade, it's not bad.

What's most annoying for me is that when I do a link from my mobile mail app (K9mail) it always opens the full site which doesn't scale.

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jarledb

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#1292024 26-Apr-2015 22:23

Behodar:
It's a good thing that we don't have any competitors then! :)

A business without competitors? Tell me more! (I see an opportunity here)

In all seriousness, next time we "redo" the site we'll make it scale better to mobile, but who knows when that'll be...

Do you use a CMS today?

Edit: With that said, it does seem a bit backwards. In the old days we were stuck with WAP sites. Then smartphones came along - I remember Steve Jobs proudly stating that Safari gives you the "full Web" in all its glory. Now Google wants us making WAP sites again.

Just the mention of WAP makes my blood curl. When WAP was introduced, the WAP browsers (and I guess mobile phones) were so fickle that WAP sites would crash the phones, and there were lots of "fun" bugs you had to deal with and avoid. The only other IT project I have had less fun with was dealing with the first versions of Microsofts "search engine" on IIS where the documentation was full of inaccuracies.

Making a modern CMS mobile friendly is not hard. You do it all more or less with CSS.

Behodar

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#1292033 26-Apr-2015 22:32

jarledb: A business without competitors? Tell me more!

I'd love to. Pity it's time for me to head to bed.

jarledb: Do you use a CMS today? [...] Making a modern CMS mobile friendly is not hard. You do it all more or less with CSS.

Not hard, no, but the "powers that be" don't want anything done to it at this stage.

rhy7s

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#1292058 27-Apr-2015 00:29

Behodar:
DonGould: I don't design two sets of content, I just set everything up to present properly where ever.

That, I do agree with. I thought it was stupid when our current design ended up being a fixed 940 pixels wide, although for the opposite reason: On my 1920x1200 display it just has a mass of grey on either side of the page.

I find it annoying when the minimum width or breakpoint doesn't work well when having two windows side-by-side at 1920x1200 (quite often), so I'd probably be OK with your 940 example but it might still end up with horizontal scrollbars depending on window decorations and padding/margins. Also, even on mobile, it's getting pretty rare to not have at least one 1024 edge.

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