Google Mobile Algorithm update
-
Hi there,
On April the 21st Google seems to going to update their Mobile algorithm. I have a few questions about this one.
- Our current mobile website is very mobile friendly.
- We block all mobile pages with a noindex, so the desktop pages have been indexed on mobile devices.
- We use a redirect from desktop page to mobile page when someone hits a result on a mobile device.
My gut tells me this is not April 21st-proof so I'm thinking about an update to make this whole thing adaptive. By making the thing adaptive, our mobile pages will be indexed instead of the desktop pages. Two questions:
- Will Google treat the mobile page as a 100% different page than the desktop page? Or will it match those two because everything will tell Google those belong together. In other words: will the mobile page start with a zero authority and will pages lose good organic positions because of authority or not?
- Which ranking factor will be stronger after April 21st for mobile pages: page authority or mobile friendliness? In other words: is it worth ignoring the 21 April update because the authority of the desktop pages is more important than making every page super mobile friendly?
Hope to get some good advice!
Marcel
-
Hi Dirk,
That sounds great. Thanks for your help, I am going for action on this solution.
Marcel
-
Marcel
with this setup Google considers your mobile site as the mobile view of your desktop site so in terms of authority it should not have an impact on authority. Most sites we have in this setup have same rankings for mobile & desktop searches.
rgds
Dirk
-
Hi DC1611 & Matt-POP,
Thank you very much for your response. This one is clear to me, I have exactly 1 month to fix this. Mobile traffic plays a big part in our daily revenue so this is serious.
@Matt-POP: your advice is to go for responsive but I rather go for a canonical/ adaptive solution because a responsive website is not really an option (causes lots of other 'challenges'). Would you also advice to go for the canonical/adaptive way? The idea to exchange links in the source between mobile and desktop. Is will look like this:
The bold parts will be filled in dynamically.
So again (@DC1611): will the mobile page receive (some of) the page authority of the desktop version this way?Tnx again.
Marcel -
Your gut is right. If you are blocking your "very mobile friendly" pages to Googlebot-mobile you will likely end up with a big mess. If your desktop site is NOT responsive and is indexed for many terms on mobile, I would think you're going to lose those terms.
If you ignore the April 21 update and have a desktop-only site indexed you are definitely going to up for a traffic drop, especially from mobile.
We have clients with 1-3% mobile (industrial services, crane hire, that stuff) and those with 50%+ mobile (a few beauty salons, ecommerce stores, etc.) and I've been telling our clients internally - if you have 3-5% mobile traffic look, it's probably not the end of the world if it takes you until June 1st to make the switch. If you have 20-30% mobile traffic, get it fixed asap. And if you're over 30% mobile traffic you absolutely cannot afford not to have a responsive site up by April 21st. So it's a priority - but how much of one may depend on your business.
-
Blocking your mobile pages for indexing is not the best strategy if you have a dedicated mobile site. Better to use canonicals to point to the main domain - full explanation on "how to" here: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/configurations/separate-urls
With this setup - Google associates both Mobile & Desktop version - so in terms of page authority this should be equal. I would not ignore the 21st April date- Google is trying to make a point here - so for mobile searches mobile friendliness will be first priority.
rgds,
Dirk
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Missing Keywords in Google SERP
We just got this attached image from one of our partners - has anyone seen Google putting 'missing' keywords in SERPs like this before? They said that it was not a plugin or anything and this is a screenshot of their organic search results. google%20screenshot_zpsgmwaf9e2.png
Algorithm Updates | | ReunionMarketing0 -
SEO for mobile sites?
Let's say I have an ecommerce site and it has a separate theme via device detection. So I may even have different content on the pages. So for example, on desktop, on mysite.com/flowers I have a video about flowers. But on mobile, I have 10 000 words of text. Will this page rank better for people searching via mobile? Will google give different search rankings, based on desktop vs. mobile? Or how is Google calculating this? Are there any good mobile SEO tips or a knowhow base?
Algorithm Updates | | JaanMSonberg0 -
Google Maps marker inconsistency
We just discovered that depending on the address format you enter into Google, you may come across incorrectly placed marker locations on Google Maps. Is this because our Google Places address format is not consistent with Google Maps' format? If so, when I go into Google Places to update the address format, am I going to have to go through the citation process all over again?
Algorithm Updates | | SSFCU0 -
Getting Listed in Google Places
How do I get listed in Google Places if I don't have a physical address? EG: I am a medical health insurance company in Colo Springs, Colorado, but service 20 cities? What is the best procedure? Getting a mailbox at Mailboxes, etc. or UPS Store?
Algorithm Updates | | GregWalt0 -
Algorithmic Update?
Does anyone know if there's been an algorithmic update for google.co.uk in the last couple of days? My site has dropped 15 places or more for all of it's terms and I'm trying to work out the cause!!! Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | PeterAlexLeigh0 -
How do I get the expanded results in a Google search?
I notice for certain site (ex: mint.com) that when I search, the top result has a very detailed view with options to click to different subsections of the site. However for my site, even though we're consistently the top result for our branded terms, the result is still only a single line item. How do I adjust this?
Algorithm Updates | | syount1 -
Google removing pages from Index for Panda effected sites?
We have several clients that we took over from other SEO firms in the last 6 months. We are seeing an odd trend. Links are disappearing from the reports. Not just the SEOmoz reports, but all the back link reports we use. Also... sites that pre Panda would show up as a citation or link, have not been showing up. Many are these are not Indexed, and are on large common Y.P or other type sites. Any one think Google is removing pages from the Index on sites based on Panda. Yours in all curiosity. PS ( we are not large enough to produce quantity data on this.)
Algorithm Updates | | MBayes0 -
Mobile SEO
Hello, A bit of an open question to start the week... What do you think are the key differences between Google's mobile search and web search algorithms? Obviously greater importance on site speed for mobile search!?
Algorithm Updates | | A_Q0