Ecommerce & Responsive design
-
Hi there,
We are thinking to redevelope our ecommerce websites and thinking responsive design. Due to responsive design when the screen gets smaller to fit iphone and ipad we need to hide some content to make it more user friendly.
My question is, how Google will treat hiding content with the smaller screens?
Will this effect our rankings in a negative way?
We really don't want to get punished by Google
Thank You
-
That would be craziest think from me if I would put such kind of statement about responsive design. I newer told that responsive design is dangerous! I told that any technique to hide something that is not visible for humans and is visible for search engines 'could' be read wrongly by Google if not now then some day!
I wouldn't risk with my personal business with this. Any possibility for me that could lead to been blacklisted/penalized etc. is strict no no.
For me, to hide something in my website is bad and to show two different versions according to 'responsive design' is something completely different and it is good.
For example:
One day SEO/BH people will start to utilize this responsive CSS design/technique to manipulate their results in Mobile search. I can guess personally what will happen - Google will tell that they are not longer favor this design or they will 'ask' to tweak and twist it. Or, they can tell that they will favor something else. What will happen with my business!? - I will be forced to redo all my work and change design,coding etc. If I will have heavily developed platform at that time I will be forced to implement huge amount of work which will cost me thousands and thousands.
I would follow only proven values and not follow some trends that are not stable in this field even if that is obvious for now.
That was what I meant and that is what I'm saying now.
Best,
Jungles
-
**There are thousands and thousands websites in the past that used hidden attributes/CSS tricks, hidden divs etc. on the page. **
When those "techniques" were used to manipulate search rankings, they violate search engine policies. In the case of Responsive Design, the CSS is being used to provide a better user experience. There is a BIG difference.
The content is fully viewable on a full screen. On a smaller screen, the less important content is not displayed. There is absolutely no intent to manipulative search rankings.
your responses was quite arrogant and I have got impression that you definitely don't need any help but coming here to show how smart you are
It seems you have been offended by my response. That certainly was not my intention. How can I share a different opinion which conflicts with yours in a manner that is not offensive to you? If you can help me understand, I will make an effort in the future.
I originally chose to visit the SEOmoz Q&A to learn about issues and challenges I do not normally face, and also to understand alternative methods of practicing SEO. That is still the case, but I contribute to the community in an effort to help others.
You have a very unique viewpoint. During my literally thousands of responses shared with hundreds or thousands of SEOs and site owners, no one has ever reacted in such a manner.
My sole goal was to ensure the topic was thoroughly and openly discussed. Your response clearly stated Responsive Design was "dangerous", a "trick" and added a "risk". I completely disagree with your assessment and do not wish any SEOs or site owners to not adopt a best practice based on misinformation. My response was presented accordingly.
Best Regards,
-
Needless to say - it is dangerous!
Do you have any evidence to support that claim? To be candid, it sounds like you are attempting to drive fear due to your unfamiliarity with the practice.
...................................................................................
There are thousands and thousands websites in the past that used hidden attributes/CSS tricks, hidden divs etc. on the page. Please, refer this website - http://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/accessibilityseo-friendly-css-hiding/
Mostly all of those sites that used this techniques has been penalized. It is old BH technique and has been heavily prosecuted by Google in the past and now as well. I would be afraid to use any hiding techniques on my business website. You skipped most important part of my previous response - lack of case studies in this field (responsive design + hidden css) therefore I would not implement any hidden element on the page.
..................................................................................
Responsive Design was talked about in 2009. The implementation of it rose sharply in 2011 and in 2012 it is widely adopted. So much so Google specifically recommends using Responsive Design.
Tell that to all the major companies who incorporated Responsive Design and have only seen benefits from doing such.
If you will browse around this topic and count the numbers of responsive design websites and websites that has been created in 2012 without this design feature - you will have some number that definitely is not -'widely adopted'. As I said before - It is just becoming popular as Google prefers it more and more and it may become a major trend whose real benefits we do not know yet.
.........................................................................................................................................
To my taste, your responses was quite arrogant and I have got impression that you definitely don't need any help but coming here to show how smart you are. No doubt you are smarter than Google.
I regret that I posted my response and spent my time on your thread and will newer do it again. Thanks.
best,
Jungles
-
Needless to say - it is dangerous!
Do you have any evidence to support that claim? To be candid, it sounds like you are attempting to drive fear due to your unfamiliarity with the practice.
**I would newer use any CSS tricks or whatever programming technique on my business site! **
Responsive Design is not a CSS trick. It is CSS.
Perhaps you should learn about this established and recommended approach to presenting websites. I am not aware of any risks. Please share what those might be.
Responsive Design was talked about in 2009. The implementation of it rose sharply in 2011 and in 2012 it is widely adopted. So much so Google specifically recommends using Responsive Design.
Responsive design is quite new player in this field and as far there is no ranking/penalty etc. case study - do not risk!
Tell that to all the major companies who incorporated Responsive Design and have only seen benefits from doing such. A couple examples:
-
Needless to say - it is dangerous!
I would newer use any CSS tricks or whatever programming technique on my business site! I would rather go for other version on my site(for mobiles). Just present to Google mobile version without content that you think is not fitting in mobile screens. You newer know what will be in Google's mind in the future and safe play is always guarantee that you will not loose rankings/traffic when/if you will be forced to recode/change/delete something in website code!
Responsive design is quite new player in this field and as far there is no ranking/penalty etc. case study - do not risk!
Business is a business and unnecessary risk is newer appreciated.
regards,
Jungles
-
Responsive design is specifically mentioned as Google's preferred method for presenting mobile websites.
how Google will treat hiding content with the smaller screens
Google understands the code very well. As long as you implement the code in a reasonable manner, you should not have any concerns about a Google penalty.
Will this effect our rankings in a negative way?
Not if implemented correctly
-
This really doesn't answer my question.
-
I Guess it depends on how you design the site, you could just use an extra theme built for mobile devices which detects the users device and directs them accordingly. or a web site that works for all users so no hidden items, most eCommerce websites have a simple navigation view on a mobile device.
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
-
We redesigned our website, make it responsive and page views tanked. What happened?
Last year, we redesigned our site and made it responsive. Our page views only grew by only 3% (the previous year they grew by 40%). If we exclude homepage views from our calculations, we get a drastically different picture-- and see over 30% growth for both total and unique pageviews. Any thoughts?
Web Design | | Anna720 -
Will numbers & data be considered as user generated content by Google OR naturally written text sentences only refer to user generated content.
Hi, Will numbers & data be considered as user generated content by Google OR naturally written text sentences only refer to user generated content. Regards
Web Design | | vivekrathore0 -
Designed by Backlink - Where to?
Now I know these links don't create much value. However, every web design company seems to do it. My question is this: If you use it, is it always good to go to the home page of your site, or is it best to redirect to sub pages. For example, if you made an e-commerce website and you link it back to your e-commerce portfolio or description page? Overall, is it still worth linking back from these? Should you only do it on a single page? Thank you in advance.
Web Design | | vortexuk0 -
Yes or No for Ampersand "&" in SEO URLs
Hi Mozzers I would like to know how crawlers see the ampersand (& or &) in your URLs and if Google frown upon this or not? As far as I know they purely recognise this as "and" is this correct and is there any best practice for implementing this, as I know a lot of people complained before about & in links and that it is better to use it as &, but this is not on links, this is on URLs. Reason for this is that we looking to move onto an ASP.Net MVC framework (any suggestions for a different framework are welcome, we still just planning out future development) and in order to make use of the filter options we have on our site we need a parameter to indicate the difference on a routing level (routing sends to controller, controller sends to model, model sends to controller and controller sends to view < this is pattern of a request that comes in on the framework we will be using). I already have -'s and /'s in the URLs (which is for my SEO structuring) so these syntax can't be used for identifying filters the user clicks or uses to define their search as it will create a complete mess in the system. Now we looking at & to say; OK, when a user lands on /accommodation and they selects De Kelders (which is a destination in our area) the page will be /accommodation/de-kelders on this page they can define their search further to say they are looking for 5 star accommodation and it should be close to the beach, this is where the routing needs some guidance and we looking to have it as follow: /accommodation/de-kelders/5-star&close-to-the-beach. Now, does the "&" get identified by search engines on a URL level as "and" and does this cause any issues with crawling or indexation or would it be best to look at another solution? Thanks, Chris Captivate
Web Design | | DROIDSTERS0 -
Can you recommend a responsive web design company of template to accommodate mobile searches
I need to change my old Dreamweaver website www.endeavourcottage.co.uk into a responsive website that can be viewed and used easily on mobile phones. Four years ago when the site was originally built it was one cottage on one basic website but it's grown into a small letting agency with several properties, so I think it's time to invest in a fully functional website. Looking at Google analytics around the fifth of the searches and now done on a mobile phone each month on this particular site, and obviously that's going to become a larger percentage in the future. Does anybody know of a particular company that can produce good quality responsive websites? Or alternatively used a particular responsive website template which was good. One of the guys that work for me is quite a good web designer if we got the right template. The old website is grown into quite a large beast with a blog so I think the idea would be to change the main pages with the properties on, just linking back to the old websites quite extensive blog / historical interest pages which I've built over the last few years. I need to keep the old blog webpages indexed because they have hundreds of back links coming with longtail keywords producing traffic. Have you gone through the process of changing your main business website for a resonsive redesign recently and how did you approach it?
Web Design | | whitbycottages0 -
SEO while designing the website and continuous SEO
What's the difference between SEO while designing/developing a website (ie, setting up a website so it is crawled by search engines) and the SEO that people talk about that needs to be viewed analyzed and changed all the time? I don't have a ton of money to spend on SEO right now but I do want to make sure my website is set up by an SEO expert (if possible) so when I do have money to spend on SEOthe website is set up properly to work with more advanced forms of SEO. I guess I don't understand where you can draw the line (if forced due to money constraints) between SEO in the beginning and continued SEO. What do I need to look for with SEO and the design of my website. How do I get some type of SEO without breaking the bank??
Web Design | | CapitolShine0 -
How to judge a good website designer?
I am looking into hiring a company to redesign my website. What tips can someone give me about how to judge whether a company is good or not? I am most interested in the website being designed to work well with SEO and crawls. Do I compare the rankings of the websites they have in their portfolio? I'm so petrified that I'm going to make the wrong choice.
Web Design | | CapitolShine1 -
Website design for non-coders
Hi All Anyone any experience with using Headway Themes for wordpress. How does it compare to Artisteer 3 for ease of use for a non-coder. Does "Headway Themes" really allow for the designing of sharp business wordpress websites for people with no coding skills as it claims. Thanks Peter
Web Design | | peterds0