Fear of mobile update has resulted in 4.7% more mobile friendly sites

[MetaData]

Google says that there are just under 5% more mobile friend sites today than there were two months ago. Doesn't seem like a lot really but I guess that number is taking into account their entire index, including a lot of sites that are just abandoned and not getting any visitors or being maintained at all.

Would be curious to know what % of sites that weren't mobile friendly have made the switch specifically, because I imagine most new sites coming online in the past two months would be mobile friendly and skew the numbers as well.

http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2015/04/ranking-change-to-help-you-find-mobile_21.html

Have you done anything to get ready for this little shake-up or business as usual?

 

[CCarter]

I feel like this was SSL all over again. SEOs get a little data, really crumbs from Google, then they go shout it at the top of the mountain like it's going to end the world if they don't comply. Non-SSL sites are still ranking alongside SSL even till this day. This is Google's effort to control how people run their websites, first comes the small stuff - SSL, and mobile friendly - two good moves.

Then comes the waste of time stuff, "make sure your content is above the fold, more text them images (which is backwards cause people rather see images then read long text, or do videos - how do you optimize for that shit on your homepage).

People will continue jumping through hoops for Google until they realize they are faster and better alternatives. I'm not saying stop the free Google traffic, but diversify your traffic sources, and that doesn't mean just switch to Facebook or reddit - specialize yourself into becoming a known brand within your niche.

 

[benparsell]

@CCarter has an excellent point. Unfortunately most business owners don't care what their website looks like. They are able to operate their business and be successful without paying much attention to it (Example work fields: Lumber Yards, Manufacturers, Small Mom & Pop stores). Because of this, I'm sure a large portion of them never even heard about the upcoming Google update seeing as they don't study this subject of content everyday; business owners tend to focus on what their business is doing on a day to day basis and a large portion don't put energy and effort into their online presence.

"make sure your content is above the fold,"

Is this still a thing in terms of SEO? I've seen my fair share of studies showing that the average user will scroll down a full page, just because of how use to it they are (e.g. http://moz.com/blog/life-above-and-beyond-the-fold). That study talks about how it is still important to have your most important, relevant info above the fold, yet users will still continue scrolling down.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Is this still a thing in terms of SEO?

I think for Google, it's more about not having a wall of ads above the fold pushing the content down, than having content above the fold. It's a subtle difference. The questions become "what constitutes content, and how much is enough?" And another important one, "Can an ad or ads still exist above the fold without getting in the way of the algorithm?"

Think about these sites with giant hero images set to background-size: cover; so that the entire above the fold is always nothing but an image and a title. That trend is being led by sites who don't require organic traffic to stay afloat, and trickling down to the masses, thanks to theme designers adopting the trend. Will Google have a shit fit and try to manipulate change or will it adapt? Has it adapted already?

To reiterate the subtle nature of the dilemma, instead of thinking "what can I get away with?" think about "what can I NOT get away with?" The rest is fair game (for now, or forever if you don't have to bend to the organic gatekeeper's wishes).

 

[CCarter]

@benparsell - tons of SEOs go apeshit about this, in fact a week or so ago I was browsing /r/seo on reddit and someone stated their SEO company put a bunch of text above the main product for "SEO" - created a horrible user experience for actual customers, but since Google stated to do it, they did it.

Sauce: http://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/32336u/ecommerce_products_are_now_below_the_fold_due_to/

--

I stated the SEO company didn't know what it was doing and he was crazy, User experience ALWAYS comes first for a website. SEOs waste so much time jumping through the Google hoop they don't see the cliff they are about to jump forward off of.

I'm not anti-SEO, but I'm for pro-thinking about users first, they are ultimately the ones that generate revenue. SSL - meh not going to do much since in order for you to even accept credit cards as an eCommerce store on your site you would need SSL anyways to be PCI compliant - unless you are fucking around with some bullshit like PayPal.

Any serious eCommerce store would have had SSL regardless - so all Google did was waste people's fucking time, some random mommy's blog will not ever need SSL, and ironically adsense RPM are lower with with MFA (Made for Adsense) websites with SSL enabled because guess what - the advertiser doesn't have SSL on their site, so they do not advertise on SSL sites. Last I read it was about $0.70 revenue for SSL MFA versus $1.00 revenue for non-SSL MFA - From Adsense, Google's product... go figure.

Now with mobile it makes sense IF you want people that are on the go to be able to digest your content. If I'm looking for a restaurant and am in a cab, your site better be mobile friendly, fast, and allow me to click on directions to give to the cabbie in case he's lost.

But if you take my SERPWoo for example, that site is mobile friendly, but realistically I don't get a ton of signups from mobile users, I do get some, but using the main SERPWoo interface on a mobile phone really doesn't work, it just doesn't. It's meant for deep analysis, and a wide screen, down the road we'll eventually get a mobile app, but the trick will be to display huge graphs of charts on a small device - the UX is going to have to be completely re-done or re-thought of for mobile.

Some mommy's recipe blog - should that be mobile friendly, hell yeah.

Does it make sense to do your taxes on a mobile device - I dunno, I wouldn't.

Certain things just don't make sense having a mobile version, similar to SSL, mommy's recipe blog on cookies probably doesn't need it.

 

[SteelBlue]

Anyone who did switch to responsive, are you seeing any extra traffic right now? Seems like such a low percentage of people did that it'd be an easy win for mobile traffic. I've got one site doing a LOT better, but its partially from switching to responsive adsense

 

[Postmortis]

Anyone who did switch to responsive, are you seeing any extra traffic right now? Seems like such a low percentage of people did that it'd be an easy win for mobile traffic. I've got one site doing a LOT better, but its partially from switching to responsive adsense

We have a few sites that aren't responsive (client budget restrictions) and so far there's no difference at all. With saying that, as I'm not in the US it could take a week / 2 weeks longer.