'Mobilegeddon' - do you own a website?

[C.J]

If you own a website and rely on traffic via search engines to find your product or service, today's Google update may be of interest to you. The simple question is, is your website mobile optimised? If it is, you're fine, and if it isn't, what are you going to do about it?

So you own/run your website, have you checked how much traffic actually comes from mobile searches? (You're using Google Analytics, right?). The prediction is around 60% of search traffic comes from mobile devices. If your website receives that much traffic, could you survive without it?

Google won't be penalising websites that are not mobile optimised, but it will be rewarding websites that are. This means your competitors could jump ahead of you in the SERPs.

Don't expect an overnight fall in traffic, but if your site is not mobile optimised, expect a hit over the next few weeks.

How can I check if my site is mobile optimised?

The quickest and easiest way is to paste your website URL here: https://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ - This will tell you what you need to know.

What if my website isn't mobile optimised?

Start thinking today about how or who is going to update your website. Your site will suffer (unless by coincidence all of your competitors are in the same boat as you). Over the last few weeks I've been updating old client sites (we're talking 5-7 years old) into a responsive design.

If I sort my website, how long will it take to get my positioning back?
Google are confirming (unlike the Panda/Penguin updates) that they will evaluate pages individually rather than site wide. So as soon as you've corrected a page into a mobile friendly layout, your position could be back within 2 weeks.

Some further reading:
http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/21/googles-mobile-friendly-update-could-impact-over-40-of-fortune-500/
http://searchengineland.com/tomorro...-for-the-google-mobile-friendly-update-219291
http://news.sky.com/story/1468513/google-search-change-could-cause-mobilegeddon
http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-mobilegeddon-2015-4

 

[Jack!]

Are you gonna try and sell me cheap Ray-Bans?

 

[BoatNonce]

f**k sake. I hate mobile optimized sites.

 

[C.J]

f**k sake. I hate mobile optimized sites.

Not sure if SRS.

 

[Keydogg]

f**k sake. I hate mobile optimized sites.

Some I find really useful but most of the time I find myself clicking "Desktop version" because they cut out too much content!

 

[Goodj]

"Mobile Optimised"
aka
"stripped to bare bones and with nothing but a shopping cart"

It kind of made sense before phones started to grow to the size of a small notebook, or when WAP was the word. Now though, no thanks.

 

[BoatNonce]

Exactly. I don't want, in 2015, with a modern smartphone with a full HTML browser, to be using an internet that looks like it was straight outta 1995.

Missing content is a constant nightmare too, and links not working properly on the mobile versions of sites.

 

[C.J]

Some I find really useful but most of the time I find myself clicking "Desktop version" because they cut out too much content!

"Mobile Optimised"
aka
"stripped to bare bones and with nothing but a shopping cart"

Exactly. I don't want, in 2015, with a modern smartphone with a full HTML browser, to be using an internet that looks like it was straight outta 1995.

It sounds like you don't know what a mobile optimised website is, or have bad experience. A mobile website (ie an area of a website built for mobiles ONLY, usually a URL will have www.m.yourname.com or www.yourname.com/m/) is a different version of a desktop site, and usually includes a 'desktop view' button.

If you're displaying a separate version of your website to a mobile, you're doing it wrong. Totally wrong.

That's not what I'm talking about.

All sites (which I do) should be responsive. This means there is only ONE website, and the page resizes as you reduce the width of your screen. Allowing all content to display on every device, but neater. There's not a mobile and a desktop version. Just one.

It's 2015, there's zero excuse not to have a responsive, or mobile optimised, website.

 

[Cookie]

How many penis pills can I get for 10 dollars?

 

[Goodj]

Can I find a russian bride on my mobile now then?
I mean, they're advertised all over Cliosport now, so I'm guessing their optimal.

 

[The Boosh!]

renault.co.uk is mobile optimised if you want an example of what it looks like.

 

[JD]

This will sort the weak from the chaff. In my industry it's essential, with our competitors losing out on a lot of income if they are not optimised. This will slowly spread throughout the entire business world, with importance way above being "socially present".

 

[Cookie]

This will sort the weak from the chaff. In my industry it's essential, with our competitors losing out on a lot of income if they are not optimised. This will slowly spread throughout the entire business world, with importance way above being "socially present".

Wheat from the chaff, not weak. Wheat good, chaff bad.

 

[MicKPM]

I've just had to redo our site for this reason. Google says "do it, or else"

Needs a few minor tweaks (image sizes vs view ports) but on the whole, pretty happy as it doesn't reduce content.

www.diamondmotors.co.uk

 

[JD]

Wheat from the chaff, not weak. Wheat good, chaff bad.

That's a good point. I was being corny.

 

[C.J]

I've just had to redo our site for this reason. Google says "do it, or else"

Needs a few minor tweaks (image sizes vs view ports) but on the whole, pretty happy as it doesn't reduce content.

www.diamondmotors.co.uk

If you install the Font Awesome Icons plugin, you should see the icons you're missing.

EDIT - They've just started working, maybe I hadn't finished loading.

 

[MicKPM]

They're responsive so don't fade up until you start scrolling.

 

[C.J]

They're responsive so don't fade up until you start scrolling.

I know what you mean, but when I viewed it, every icon (social in the nav, floating social, paragraph icons) were missing and replaced with a rectangle.

All good though. Looks nice.

 

[MicKPM]

Probably our crappy slow host then. Must move to a UK VPS

 

[SharkyUK]

Mick, I'm not seeing the icons despite the site being fairly quick. It seems you have a configuration issue (or possibly in incorrect path to the ETmonarch font resource). It may also be a cache updating issue (it's hard to say without knowing the details of your setup). Basically there's a cross-origin resource sharing policy conflict, and this is stopping your own domain (diamondmotors.net) from accessing and using the ETmonarch font; which is used for the icons that aren't displaying correctly. Might be worth dropping a note to your webhost / designer.

EDIT: Looks like a problem due to the fact that you are using both a .net and .co.uk domain name and one resource from the other cannot necessarily be accessed by the other...

EDIT: Yes confirmed. If I go to your .co.uk site it's broke. If I get redirected to the .net it works fine. You need to alter all the .net references in your pages to .co.uk references (in a nutshell).

 

[Padso]

I decided to change our own website just after last summer and used a responsive theme from template monster / argento for our magento ecommerce front end.
http://www.techyteam.co.uk/
Works quite well on mobile or tablets but theres still tonnes of work to do.

Next step is to start getting some decent backlinks to the site and then start optimising the site and increase the speed as its quite slow but i think that may be down to the servers we use to host it which are located on the west coast of America. I think we may need to look at a host more suitable to hosting magento.

 

[MicKPM]

Mick, I'm not seeing the icons despite the site being fairly quick. It seems you have a configuration issue (or possibly in incorrect path to the ETmonarch font resource). It may also be a cache updating issue (it's hard to say without knowing the details of your setup). Basically there's a cross-origin resource sharing policy conflict, and this is stopping your own domain (diamondmotors.net) from accessing and using the ETmonarch font; which is used for the icons that aren't displaying correctly. Might be worth dropping a note to your webhost / designer.

EDIT: Looks like a problem due to the fact that you are using both a .net and .co.uk domain name and one resource from the other cannot necessarily be accessed by the other...

EDIT: Yes confirmed. If I go to your .co.uk site it's broke. If I get redirected to the .net it works fine. You need to alter all the .net references in your pages to .co.uk references (in a nutshell).

Thanks Sharky, i'll check that out later on

 

[MicKPM]

Huge thank you to @SharkyUK for helping out today with some of that silly "code" stuff - Normally I'd hit s**t with a big hammer until it works properly but I didn't think Apple Care would class that as a valid repair case.

 

[SharkyUK]

Hahahaha! No problem Mick, really glad I was able to help out! I may have used a hammer in coming up with the solution... :tonguewink:

 

[MicKPM]

I deffo owe you a huge favour though as i'd never got that resolved.