by David Brown
Google Did What? Why ? When ?
Google changed their search result parameters (algorithm) yesterday - April 21st -to increased the results for websites that also are mobile friendly, or that have mobile sites.I don't know why they didn't select April 1st and make it the same day as April Fools.
Ranking preference based on responsive design, that is not used by a majority of businesses yet? Some of whom have spent time and resources on SEO - search engine optimization.
Even with some notice, mobile sites are now the new norm for SERPs (search engine results page). The big why is that mobile devices are overtaking PC desktops as the preferred means of internet search.
Here are links to important and authoritative articles and blogs on this topic.
Google Webmaster "Official" Blog
You do not have to be a webmaster to appreciate Google's descriptions of changes being made such as today's post "Rolling Out the Mobile Friendly Update". Of course other posts may be a bit technical, but this one is user friendly. Other recent posts include FAQ's About the April 21st Mobile Friendly Update.
What Does MOZ Say?
MOZ - The best SEO analyst on the web, has some things to say about Google's mobile update. In their "MOZ 10" just published today, here are a few links to some authoritative posts.
Responsive or Bust - Google's Focus on Mobile - How to Design for It
Annie Cushing :
How to Use Chromes' Mobile Emulator to Get Your Site Mobile Friendly
Twitter Feeds #MobileMadness
Twitter's Mobile Madness hashtag was very active yesterday. Here's some links for results.
#MobileMadness
#Googlewmc - Google Webmaster Blog - Where it All Started
A Quick Fix - That Passes the Google Mobile TestIf you have a site that is not responsive yet, and want to have Google see a mobile site when it crawls your home page, consider adding mobile pages to your site and redirect code that will go to the site for iphones and Android phones. Of course there is a hitch. The code that I use is for Adobe Cold Fusion, although it may be modified or work with other programs.
One of two results will show up :|
Test your site with Google Mobile Test >
This is the code that I use on various sites and the Google test gave the site a go for being mobile friendly.
<cfif findNoCase('Android', cgi.http_user_agent,1)>
<!--- relocate to Android version of the mobile site --->
<cflocation url="http://www.Yourwebsitehere.com/">
<cfelseif findNoCase('iPhone', cgi.http_user_agent,1)>
<!--- relocate to iphone version of the mobile site --->
<cflocation url="http://www.Yourwebsitehere.com/">
<cfelseif findNoCase('mobile', cgi.http_user_agent,1)>
<!--- relocate to iphone version of the mobile site --->
<cflocation url="http://www.Yourwebsitehere.com/">
</cfif>
Ultimately, a responsive site is the best solution for the recent Google changes. However, if we can "hack" the results of the mobile friendly test, without going through the major overhaul of a site to convert it to responsive then we are helping our clients save money.
