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Dealing with Google's 'Mobilegeddon' Algorithm Changes (Video)
'Mobilegeddon is here,' said one article I saw about SEO. Others have been similarly doom and gloom about Google's new emphasis on how well a site functions on mobile devices as a factor in search rankings. Brian Sutter, director of marketing for Wasp Barcode Technologies, lives and breathes this stuff -- and doesn't consider Google's algorithm change to be any sort of 'geddon.' He thinks you should be making a better mobile website because a growing percentage of your customers (and his) are viewing the WWW on mobile devices, not because of Google.
Brian's not interested in site design and visibility because his company does SEO or designs websites. Rather, it's because he, as Wasp's marketing guy, wants their site to sit high in Google's rankings if someone is looking for bar code printers or scanners, and he's happy to share what he's learned with Wasp's customers and anybody else who's interested as a goodwill thing. Maybe you aren't directly interested in operating a website or trying to make one popular, but knowing what's going on in the SEO world (for real, as opposed to the flummery often associated with the letters 'SEO') may help you deal with your company's marketing people -- and could be valuable knowledge if you ever decide to start your own business.
Brian's not interested in site design and visibility because his company does SEO or designs websites. Rather, it's because he, as Wasp's marketing guy, wants their site to sit high in Google's rankings if someone is looking for bar code printers or scanners, and he's happy to share what he's learned with Wasp's customers and anybody else who's interested as a goodwill thing. Maybe you aren't directly interested in operating a website or trying to make one popular, but knowing what's going on in the SEO world (for real, as opposed to the flummery often associated with the letters 'SEO') may help you deal with your company's marketing people -- and could be valuable knowledge if you ever decide to start your own business.
I thought we were putting videos down in that little bar thing. Also, which domain(s) do I enable to make Video Bytes work?
NO VIDEO, SLASHDOT. Interviews are much better when read, not when I have to sit through a lengthy video to get the same information much more slowly with no visual benefit over just reading it myself.
Answering my own question: ooyala.com.
Huh, I view WWI and WWII stuff on my mobile device, but WWW? World War 'W'? Help me out here - googling doesn't come up with anything and I didn't take much History or other humanities in school.
Can google not use a more dynamic ranking based off of the device viewing their site rather than putting the onus on each individual website?
They're tanking search results for users ON A PC OR LAPTOP due to your mobile-friendliness. It's bullshit and it's forcing the internet to make an unnecessary change and waste money and/or time because they think the web should be more mobile-friendly. It's corrupt, stupid, unfair nonsense and the FTC, FCC, or Supreme Court will crush them when someone eventually files suit over this.
Personally, my business opinion of my computer repair company's website is if they can't read it on a smartphone very well, use a real computer. I chose to completely ignore mobile-friendliness (although my site is extremely fast loading and uses simplistic HTML and no plugins so it actually is mobile friendly, but not in Google's opinion) and now I'm getting penalized by Google for users who are doing the right thing and using a real computer to do searches instead of an inadequately fast device with a 4 inch screen.
We run a robotics team. This team is extremely well known, and the students pride themselves on writing a web page every year full of useful information. It was well-visited, and when you searched for the team name and number it was the top result.
Now? Searching for the team brings up youtube. And vine. And twitter. And facebook. And other social media sites that the team uses. The team web page has been pushed to the SECOND PAGE of the search results, because the kids didn't build a mobile web page.
You're breaking your own search engine for your business plan. What happened to 'do no evil'?
Brian's not interested in site design and visibility because his company does SEO or designs websites.
So not interested in the 2 things his company specializes in?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Google should use different algorithms for different devices.
And let you choose to search with the browser version. Because often times I want to view the browser version of sites and no matter how many settings I tweak on my phone I still get their "mobile" aka useless version of the sites.
I really do not care about them at all on my page(s). I out content on there because it contains information, not meaningless entertainment. And I will do zero adjustments just because Google has a god-complex.
As a side-note, I find Googles "search" to become less and less useful these days. I routinely find far more useful information by cross-links than any number of searches.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I tell clients they can pay for the mobile upgrade or suffer a loss of Google ranking. It's working out well so far.
Should everyone make their websites mobile-friendly? Of course. We should all be heavily invested in the user experience. But like so many things, we can't always do everything we should be doing. I'm sure you can think of a dozen or more projects at work that should be taken care of but you either don't have time or the resources to make them happen right now. Making a website mobile is great but for many companies it requires a huge investment in time and resources that they simply don't have. The Google mobile-ready changes were nice in that they forced people to make getting their website mobile-friendly a priority. Most wouldn't have done it if it wasn't for Google forcing their hand on it (or at least not for some time). While it's nice for the user that Google pushed them to do it, many businesses had to spend a lot of time and money making it happen which took away from other projects.
... illegal (a misdemeanor) to arm a geddon.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Because one thing is certain: I DO NOT want to waste my time on a "mobile optimized" page. These things look terrible in a normal browser. So, how many search results do I have to ignore before I get to the real links. And, more important, could anyone develop a plugin that discards those duds automatically?
Thanks.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And what if my website isn't intended for a mobile audience at all? I'll readily admit I'm stuck 10 years in the past with my web design, but a few of my sites are intentionally not built for mobile because the content they have is not intended for mobile and if you told me you're using your phone to access the site, I'd get a puzzled look and say "but why?".
Can I set a "X-intentionally-not-designed-for-mobile: true" header?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
And how many companies will bother to really keep two versions of their webpage current? If mobile preference gives them higher google rank, they will trim it for mobile use with a token acknowledge to "the rest".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
you are already sadly behind the times.
Not all applications are appropriate for a mobile platform. if you want something to be done quickly and efficiently, then a stupid little phone or tablet is not the place to do it. It may work great for Candy Crush and texting (well, not really), but it will never replace a keyboard, mouse and large screen. Or maybe it will, and God help us all.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
My iPhone does just fine with the desktop versions of websites. I don't want the "mobile" version.
Hear! Hear! I hate going to websites that display the mobile version, which as far as I can tell means removing about half the content so it can display on a device that is not really meant for that sort of task. Sometimes I go to imdb on my phone and rather than monkey with trying to get the desktop version to display, i will just go to my computer because half the information is hidden and you need three or four clicks to get to it on the phone.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Can we just drop the "mobile" and talk about dynamic layouts instead.
What you're talking about is called a responsive layout, and it's the current best practice for mobile support. It involves using CSS media queries to adjust the page layout based on the size of the display.
(And the Google algorithm does detect responsive layouts and consider them mobile friendly.)
"If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated"
Can google not use a more dynamic ranking based off of the device viewing their site rather than putting the onus on each individual website?
The featured article on Searchmetrics states that it does: "The update impacts mobile search queries only – not desktop." This implies that Google applies desktop usability measure to ranking when viewed with a desktop UA and mobile usability measure to ranking when viewed with a mobile UA.
They're tanking search results for users ON A PC OR LAPTOP due to your mobile-friendliness.
What in the featured article states that? The Searchmetrics article points out that results for mobile searches and desktop searches use different ranking, and its statistics use change in desktop search ranking as a control group when determining the impact of the change in mobile search ranking.
How about a list of everything google to put in the hosts file?
APKs are Android packages. This means they're Google. But APK is also a big proponent of using hosts files as one layer in your security practices. Are you trying to recommend using APK techniques to block APKs? My head feels like it's about to explode.
How can a blog, forum, or wiki that encourages its users to enter multiple paragraphs of text and mark-up be "mobile friendly" when "mobile" means a glass keyboard on a 5 inch screen?
The marketing department helps keep the technology department funded. Both are necessary to the continued operation of a business.
What you're talking about is called a responsive layout, and it's the current best practice for mobile support. It involves using CSS media queries to adjust the page layout based on the size of the display.
(And the Google algorithm does detect responsive layouts and consider them mobile friendly.)
Yes. Using responsive layout, you can adjust lots of things depending on the size of the screen. You can adjust the font size, number of columns (3 columns for a large computer screen, 1 column for a phone screen), the colors (brighter colors with lots of contrast for a phone, so the user can read the phone in bright sunlight), etc.
Web developers who aren't familiar with responsive design can find lots of tutorials and MOOC classes on it.
I agree with the frustration of finding that a website has changed to mobile-only, and now doesn't work well with a large computer screen. But that doesn't mean the website should not have become mobile-friendly. It means that the people who made it mobile-friendly should have used responsive design, so that the website would look right in any size screen.
What you're talking about is called a responsive layout, and it's the current best practice for mobile support. It involves using CSS media queries to adjust the page layout based on the size of the display.
No CSS media query can change the amount of HTML that you serve. For example, a news site may want to show only headlines on phone screens but headlines and one-sentence summaries on larger screens. Only a Vary: User-agent strategy can take that into account without running the risk of sending text that will never be seen to a viewer who pays by the bit for downloads.
Wait, there's more...Google has a page analyser that tells you what you need to do to tweak pages. I took one of my pages and was told the font was too small. So I jacked it up. Same "problem". So I jacked it up again, and again. I never got the "too small" message to go away. So, thanks, Google, you've installed an idiot filter. I don't want the idiots you will be sending to HuffPost mega picture click-fests.
I come here for the love
Because one thing is certain: I DO NOT want to waste my time on a "mobile optimized" page. These things look terrible in a normal browser. So, how many search results do I have to ignore before I get to the real links.
This. Jesus on a skateboard this. My site looks "okay" on a phone, but I'm sure as hell not going to design it for one. Too much data, and it is specifically designed for a decent sized screen, and will stay that way.
If the concept of burying useful pages in a sea of bullshit advertising is a good idea, have at it Google. I regularly had had two pages of useless ads showing up (especially those cancerous msn.o pages that I have hostfiled out that you get sent to on the first fucing result, but only hand you off. Your search results already are approaching worthless. Why would I care if by bowing to your desires, I'd get to page three instead of page four?
I went to Duckduckgo a few months ago, and the noise to signal ratio has muchly improved.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
User-agent sniffing is the devil.
Some people think this. Others think JavaScript is the devil.
Combine the media query with dynamically loading content.
Dynamic anything will screw things up for users of NoScript. Or are NoScript users heavily overrepresented among Slashdot regulars?
Search Engines try to find the most interesting pages that match queries from humans; they do this using robots running algorithms that model what humans might find interesting. "Search Engine Optimizers" try to model what search engine robots will do, and trick them into showing their customers' uninteresting web pages first instead of pages that humans will actually find interesting, because they want to sell you crap. (Doesn't matter if they're good at it, as long as their also-scum customers pay them.)
SEOs will tell you they're not doing the black-hat stuff that got them a bad name, and that they're really providing legitimate services for their customers*. Sure, they'll help you rewrite your web page so Google's robots can find the interesting parts (Google will also tell you how to do this, for free, and I agree that charging a customer money to tell them not to hide their important content in singing dancing Flash-Animated Javascript-requiring Videos is actually a non-scummy valuable service to the public - but most people who sell those services call themselves "web designers" or similar consulting titles.)
Some of them will also tell you how to write actual interesting content for your web pages - but most people who do that call themselves "editors" or "content specialists" or similar titles, and only fall back on the term "SEO" if they're appealing to dumber customers or trying to also offer scummy services.
If Google's changing their search rankings in a publicly documented way, and you're calling it a "mobilegeddon" because it breaks all your little tricks for boosting uninteresting content to higher search rankings, you deserve it. If you're a legitimate web design specialist, you don't need scare tactics like that, you just need to learn what Google wants and offer legitimate re-design services.
And yes, I did RTFA, but I didn't WTFV.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I can read interesting material much faster than I can listen to it on video, and I can differentiate between interesting and uninteresting material much MUCH faster reading it than slogging through a video. Transcripts aren't perfect, but at least they're a start.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
So have a site with "too much data" that you haven't managed to usably format on smaller devices.
I don't write for NTSC video either.
The problem is I would need to essentially write two completely different websites. And after making the mobile version, you would need the patience of Job or better to go through it.
But manage? Oh hell, I could manage pretty easily. But it's like entering a AMG GTS in the Baha 500. Some things don't make any sense.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If you use duckduckgo, you are, simply put, probably up to no good. Let's face it, the only reason someone would use a search engine which markets itself as "the search engine that doesn't track you" is of they want to hide something, especially since google is incomparably more advanced, relevant, and user friendly.
Yeah, that must be it. Couldn't be that a person might be doing some research. It couldn't be that Google searches have become vehicles for sales, and not for information. If you have enough time to waste going through page after page of ads, then Google is for you. Make sure you turn off adblock and no script - there's a good boy.
And I don't even dislike Google, it's just that it doesn't serve much of a purpose for me. I don't care if they track my searches - I only care that they track them to design what I see.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I'm reading about mobile usability on the Slashdot site whilst the adchoices popover advert is blowing up the Chrome mobile browser. I say its past time for the geddon.