Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. Digital Marketing
    3. Web Design
    4. What factors make a ranking difference between Desktop and Mobile?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    What factors make a ranking difference between Desktop and Mobile?

    Web Design
    4
    4
    2244
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • vtmoz
      vtmoz last edited by

      Hi all,

      What makes a website rank better on mobile? Usually page load speed and mobile responsiveness matters and makes a difference to rank w website better on mobile than desktop. our website is surprisingly ranking better on Mobile but not much on desktop. What might influenced here in improvement in mobile ranking and drop in desktop?

      Thanks

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • lydiagilbertson
        lydiagilbertson last edited by

        +1 to both of the above comments! It's hard to say why a website ranks higher in mobile than in desktop without actually seeing it. However, a few factors could be at play here:

        1. Site Speed

        2. Not having pop-ups or flash enabled on your mobile site

        3. Structured Data is present

        More data is certainly needed in order to answer your question in a more specific way.

        Good question!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • DonnaDuncan
          DonnaDuncan last edited by

          I don't have any evidence to support this theory, but I suspect engagement has a lot to do with it.

          Here's a good article that explains how you can use Google Analytics to assess your own website's visitor engagement. You might want to compare desktop to mobile to see if there is a noticeable difference. It's very hard to get data that allows you to compare engagement metrics across different websites unfortunately.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • AndersS
            AndersS last edited by

            Hi!

            It can be a great many things that casues the rankings to be different. Perhaps some of these are fitting to your site:

            • Your site gives a better experience than your competitors on mobile
            • Your site has a greater CTR from organic search results than your competitors
            • (Mobile) page speed
            • Font setup on mobile vs dekstop (readability and user experience)

            I found this article on SearchEngingWatch that could be of interest to you.

            Best regards,
            Anders

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • AndyRCWRCM

              Having a Subfolder/Subdirectory With a Different Design Than the Root Domain

              Hi Everyone, I was wondering what Google thinks about having a subfolder/subdirectory with a different design than the root domain. So let's say we have MacroCorp Inc. which has been around for decades. MacroCorp has tens of thousands of backlinks and a couple thousand referring domains from quality sites in its industry and news sites. MacroCorp Inc. spins off one of its products into a new company called MicroCorp Inc., which makes CoolProduct. The new website for this company is CoolProduct.MacroCorp.com (a subdomain) which has very few backlinks and referring domains. To help MicroCorp rank better, both companies agree to place the MicroCorp content at MacroCorp.com/CoolProduct/. The root domain (MacroCorp.com) links to the subfolder from its navigation and MicroCorp does the same, but the MacroCorp.com/CoolProduct/ subfolder has an entirely different design than the root domain. Will MacroCorp.com/CoolProduct/ be crawled, indexed, and rank better as both companies think it would? Or would Google still treat the subfolder like a subdomain or even a separate root domain in this case? Are there any studies, documentation, or links to good or bad examples of this practice? When LinkedIn purchased Lynda.com, for instance, what if they kept the https://www.lynda.com/ design as is and placed it at https://www.linkedin.com/learning/. Would the pre-purchase (yellow/black design) https://www.linkedin.com/learning/ rank any worse than it does now with the root domain (LinkedIn) aligned design? Thanks! Andy

              Web Design | | AndyRCWRCM
              1
            • jcobo

              Making html table as 'seofriendly' as possible

              Hi, On my website I have a table with a list of products, on every row I have a different product and a different property on each column. The table is made with css so the html code is clean. The problem is (I guess) that google doesn't 'understand' what its inside on the table. So if I do a google search that page appears on the page 87, there is any way to improve my SEO without changing the table? Or to improve my SEO I must change the format of my content? In resume, I want to improve the SEO page of a page that contains information organized inside a table. I don't know if there is a specific answer to this question. Any help is welcome. Regards

              Web Design | | jcobo
              0
            • IsaCleanse

              Website rankings drop significantly after moving to new hosting provider

              My website - www.isacleanse.co.nz has dropped from being top10 rankings for all of my keywords to not even being in top 50 after just checking now. It used to be hosted on: www.1stdomains.nz
              It got migrated to Sitground servers about a month ago See attached screenshot - would moving hosting provider cause such a huge drop? Or would there be anything else I should be looking at ? J2ahi

              Web Design | | IsaCleanse
              0
            • vivekrathore

              Will interlinking using dynamic parameters in url help us in increasing our rankings

              Hi, Will interlinking our internal pages using dynamic parameters(like abc.com/property-in-noida?source=footer) help us in increasing our rankings for linked pages OR we should use static urls for interlinking Regards

              Web Design | | vivekrathore
              0
            • ScottOlson

              Does moving Server (IP) affect rankings?

              I work for a pretty large company with an established web domain with thousands of pages. We are working on a new website and they talked about moving the site onto a new server. What is the impact ranking wise of going to a new server? Does Google care so long as it's the same domain, or is there some equity lost? Thanks in advance!

              Web Design | | ScottOlson
              0
            • GeorgFranz

              Image with 100% width/height - bad ranking?

              Hi, we have some articles like this: http://www.schicksal.com/Orakel/Freitag-13 The main image has a width of 100% and a height of 100%. Today, I've discovered that GWT Instant Preview has some troubles with rendering the page. We have CSS rules to deliver the image with the right dimensions. If a bot like google is not sending any screen height / width we assume the screen size is 2560x1440. Does this harm the ranking of the page? (Content starts below the fold/image) What is a "default" screen size for google? How do they determine if something is "above the fold"? Any tips or ideas? Best wishes, Georg.

              Web Design | | GeorgFranz
              0
            • Bill_K

              Old site to new WordPress site - Client concerned about Yahoo Ranking

              Hello, Back Story I have a client (law firm) who has a large .html website. He has been doing his own SEO for years and it shows. I think the only reason he reached out to a professional is because he got a huge penalty from Google last fall and fell very far down in rankings. Although, he still retains a #1 spot in Yahoo for his site for the keyword phrase he wants. I have been creating a new WordPress theme for the client and creating all new pages and updating the formatting/SEO. From the beginning I have told the client that when we delete the old site and install a new WordPress site (same domain name, but different page hierarchy) he will take a bump in the search engines until all the 301 redirects get sorted out. I told him I can't guarantee any time frame of how long the dip in SEO will last. Some sites bounce right back while others take longer. Last week, during a discussion, he tells me that if he loses his #1 ranking on Yahoo for any length of time he thinks he will go out of business. Needless to say I was a little taken back. When it comes to SEO I use best practice techniques, do my research, stay on top of trends but I never guarantee rankings when moving to a new site. I'm thinking of ways I can help elevate any type of huge SEO drop off and help the client. Here is what I was thinking of suggesting to the client and I would love some feedback. Main Question He has another domain he isn't doing anything with. It's pretty much his domain name with pc added. I was thinking about using that domain to create a simple 1-2 page WordPress website with brand new content (no duplicate content) aimed at attracting his keyword phrase. I would do as much SEO as I could with a 1-2 page site and give it a month or so to see if this smaller site can get into the top #10 in Yahoo, or higher. Then, when we move the site he will still have a website on the first page of Yahoo for his keyword phrase. I hope I explained it clearly 🙂 I would be open to any suggestions anyone may have. Thanks

              Web Design | | Bill_K
              0
            • stefanok

              Mobile Site Pages: Word Count Help

              Hi there I am doing a mobile website for a client and they asked me what the dieal word count would be per page. They are SEO conciosu but we are not doing SEO on this site. I would just like to know a general rule of thumb. Regards Stef

              Web Design | | stefanok
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.