Do search enginges prefer pages with mobile websites on the mobile phone?
-
Let me explain what I want to know:
Somebody searches e.g. for a hotel on his mobile phone. Do the search engines rank websites with special mobile pages better than others? I am not considering the local factor here (let's say there are hotels nearby with or without mobile websites).
If not, is there a trend for that?
Does anyone have some datas / examples / experience about that?
-
Hello Petra,
The "right" question to ask would rather be - how will this be in the (close) future - and the answer is that it will be more and more important to have mobile optimized versions.
You should use a rel=canonical back to your desktop/web version though. Here's an excellent QA which hints at what I wrote above as well: http://www.seroundtable.com/single-url-mobile-seo-13521.html
It's okay to redirect to a subdomain or subfolder but if you aim for the 100% you should not (it's not always possible, I know).best regards,
Jan -
Thank you for your reply
-
My experience has been that the answer is (unfortunately) - sometimes.
There appear to be some cases where Google's algo does bias toward mobile-friendly and mobile-specific versions of pages, and other times where they appear to have little to no impact. It's hard to pin down when, where and why, but I suspect things like browser version on the phone, the type of device and Google's interpretation of the query and its specificity to needing a mobile version all play a role.
I will say that over the past few years, I've seen less and less mobile-specific biasing and rewarding by Google. I wrote about this here - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whats-the-future-of-mobile-search-and-seo
Hope that helps!
-
This is a great question, and one for which I searching for answers. The company that I do in house SEO for has a mobile version of the website on a subfolder. The mobile site has around 8,000 pages indexed. However, when I search google from my android it only returns results for the non-mobile version of the site.
I thought google would appreciate us taking the time to create a mobile site, and reward us by displaying the mobile version in their mobile search results. As far as google is concerned, the only way to get to the mobile site is to find the mobile link on our regular site. Again, 8,000 mobile pages are indexed in google (and I have verified this).
-
Not seen a huge correlation between ranking and mobile site or Google display mobile pages on mobile devices instead of web pages. There have been some studies that show the differences though.
However, I personally lean more towards building a mobile site because I am big proponent of usability and I don't feel that at the current state normal web pages are mobile friendly. I believe that soon there will not be any difference in mobile and web pages when all of the sites will be designed to be universally accesible and this could result in mobile site bulding being obsolete but until then mobile sites are important.
Here are some good reports about mobile usability and how it differs from web usaiblity
http://www.esprockets.com/papers/kamvar-baluja.chi06.pdf
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/mobile-usability.html
Hope this helps.
Thanks
Sameer
-
I haven't gone in-depth with this but from my own observations the situation was clear. Presence of mobile version of the site will set Google's preference on choice of which site to display and not affect the actual position.
Has anyone tested to see if links to mobile site page version count towards the standards site and vice versa?
-
Hi Petra: I'm hoping someone with mobile experience jumps in, but I remembbered reading a post from Cindy Krum (suzzicks) about mobile sites that might address your question. I'll have to just give you the URL as the Q&A text box is a bit wonky for my browser:
-
Good question. The rub here is what would determine a good mobile site that the SEs would want to return more than the full site?
What if a site has no benifit having a mobile site vs. a full site? Using your example of a hotel, what benifits would an SE notice? Faster page loads? Sure. Better navigation? Can they determine that?
What I am getting at is that a mobile site is not necessarily better that the full site. Example being Facebook. They have a horrible mobile site. So I do not see why an SE would be bias to that. They might rank the mobile site instead of the full site when on mobile platforms.
BTW, I did a search on my iMac and iPhone for local hotels and Google returned the same results.
Cheers
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
-
NAP: Best practices on your website?
My store currently has 2 location and will soon have 3. I was wondering what the best practice for listing your address information on a website. I currently have all 3 listings on one page, but would like to have a separate page for each location (to include managers and specific location info). My question is what is the best practice for listing locations on a website (for SEO)? Should I have a landing page with all 3 and their NAP info then have a link to the specific page with the same NAP info. Would having that info twice be a negative?
Image & Video Optimization | | nat88han0 -
How can we boost our rankings in a London-based Google search?
Hi all, I work for enterprise app development & mobile consultancy, Mubaloo. We tend to rank fairly well on Google for our targeted keywords in the Bristol area but not as well in London. Obviously there is more competition in London but that aside, we still don't rank brilliantly. We use our London address as our main address on our website, same for our London telephone number. Both of our offices are submitted to Google Maps and we include blog content with London and Bristol in the headers. Our main HQ is in Bristol but the London office is growing. What are the ways we can improve our rankings from a London-based Google search? Thank you in advance!
Image & Video Optimization | | donaldsze0 -
Google Local landing pages
Just wondering what the best way to handle the landing page from a google plus local profile is. I had changed it to page that I created for the specific location with a citation with correct NAP, but realized that in OSE that my root domain lost almost all its G+'s. I'm torn and just looking for some advice. I've done quite a bit of work trying to correct citations, adding citations, and reading reading reading to learn more about Google Local but the results have been pretty rough.
Image & Video Optimization | | jonnyholt0 -
Local listing services that will do phone verification of ownership
can you please tell me some local listing directory services that will do phone verification instead of sending out the post card?
Image & Video Optimization | | netlover0 -
Google+ Business Page Location Problem
I run a business in the St. Louis area. Oddly, St. Louis is broken up into more than 100 municipalities. Google keeps listing my plus page by the small municipality I am in within St. Louis, which limits my ability to show up in the St. Louis local search results. However, other businesses in town are being listed under St. Louis instead of their municipality. Any ideas on how to change this? When I go in and try to change it myself, it just stays the same. Thanks, Steve
Image & Video Optimization | | BardolLawFirm0 -
Google Images in Normal Search
If you search for the term, "Crappie". Listed 4th is a row of images. These kinds of images always seem to grab my attention above the actual search results-- or at least they do for a moment. These images seem to be in order of google images rankings. I may try to take a swing at ranking for these images. Is there anything else I should know before I start? I can't seem to find any guidance on the topic. Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | terran0 -
Multiple Location Pages and Duplicate/Thin Content
I have a client who has 10 locations throughout Colorado. Each has it's own claimed Google Places profile. I know that Google is encouraging a unqiue page on your site for each individual office location, and then aligning each location's page with it's Google Places profile. Could this create a duplicate content or thin content issue though? Each location's page on the site would have essentially the same or similar content -- just with a unique address and phone number. They're a law firm, so the company information is the same across all locations, other than the address and phone number. We could re-write the content so it's not completely the same, but for 10 locations that gets a little crazy, and still doesn't create truly unique/original content. If we get too creative with the content on each page, it would be counterproductive because these are landing pages so i want them to have the firm's major selling points to help convert. Also, the firm is ranking very well in organic and blended/local search for Colorado terms and all individual locations EXCEPT Denver, the biggest and most important market by far. Trying to move from page 3 to page 1 in Denver is important enough to warrant making the necessary changes. I just don't want to damage all the progress we've already made. I look forward to your feedback! Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | djreich0 -
Will hosted videos be indexed and pulled into search results if a video sitemap is submitted, but the video itself is in an iframe?
We're working with a client to create and submit a video site map. All of their videos are on separate pages, with unique copy, etc. The problem is that the videos may have to be within an iframe. Will this be an issue with regards to being included in video and universal search results? Or will the video site map take care of it? While we're on the topic of video site maps, does anyone know conclusively what the best thumbnail size is? Google has conflicting information, one resource says 160 x 120, and another says 120 x 90. Thanks in advance!
Image & Video Optimization | | RedDoor580