Google to penalise sites that are not optimised for mobile devices.

[iannicholson]

Here's the link:-

http://www.asiapacificdigital.com/bl...ampaign=Buffer

What's in the Web Designer roadmap to ensure WD keeps up?

[steve.ledger]

When search engines start laying down laws and penalties by dictating how we design our websites then it's time for those search engines to be decommissioned. Google / Bing might have forgotten what came first and why they make money now.

Switch to duckduckgo.com today

[mwenz]

First, reading the Google webmaster blog, I don't read about penalty hits.

Second, like it or not, creators of WYSIWYG web authoring software have to face the changing landscape of web visitors and the different devices they use at some point. Xara, Serif (who likely is in process in doing this) and the others simply have to move in the direction of fluid sites be they responsive sites or ...?

However, search engines are "dumb." They are looking for the m. Redirect. Make a sub domain, copy the site into it and provide the redirect. It will take the boys in California a while to figure that one out.

[angelize]

What kinds of things can we do now to have a mobile optimized site, with current versions of Xara software? Will it be enough to have a link leading to a second set of pages designed for mobile? And what kind of features would make future versions of Xara software better for mobile optimization?

Let's face it Google is not going away anytime soon.

Edit Mike answered while I was distracted by the phone.

[zaphodeist]

Will it be enough to have a link leading to a second set of pages designed for mobile

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogsp...tphone_11.html



Yes. Google is going on about things like faulty redirects [see image] and 404 errors when going to the mobile site. I can't see the problem with them cracking down on this kind of thing.

[Big Frank]

the title of this thread is wrong
google is going to penalise misconfigured mobile sites
not sites that dont have a mobile version
(although the latter will come sooner or later)

[pauland]

Google is going to penalise misconfigured mobile sites

I think it's an interesting statement. Who is Google to say the site is misconfigured?

Who is Google to say that a searcher doesn't deserve to find a site because Google doesn't like the way it handles mobile?

I guess it's an old argument, already raging, since Google has long decided who gets to see what and in which order.

In a sense it may not affect Xara users, since the two mal-techniques described aren't really used in conjunction with Xara and mobile.

[angelize]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if we are talking about pages that redirect a smartphone or small tablet to mobile pages, this is something that Xara software AFAIK can not do. so If I have my Xara site with links that a mobile user has to click to access the mobile pages that is not going to rank as high in the SE ratings.

[zaphodeist]

They won't penalise, as long as the links lead to a relevant page. The linked to article in post #1 is misleading

[pauland]

Frances, there has been loads of redirect code suggested on TG for switching to a mobile-specific site, so it certainly can do it.

If I have my Xara site with links that a mobile user has to click to access the mobile pages that is not going to rank as high in the SE ratings.

I don't think the article says that specifically.

It's about where there is a redirect for mobile, how that is handled.

Some of the techniques mentioned require server-side programming.

I have a feeling that Google might even might start ranking results according to the device used to do the searching, which would certainly add a new dynamic.

Interesting times.