What Are The Hazards to Changing Over to Responsive Web Design?
-
We have recently re-programmed our website to Responsive Web Design. All the URLs have remained the same, all the content is unchanged. We have this new version sitting on a development server and are finding ourselves hesitant to make the changeover. Our rankings are great currently, and our question is whether or not there are any risks that we will incur by making this change. We would appreciate any advice on how to implement this change safely. Or if that's it's even possible to insure that there won't be ranking losses.
-
Wow! Thanks, Jeff. Can't tell you how much we appreciate your efforts here. It's great to have the wider based testing in addition to our own. Thanks also for your footer suggestion. We always used to have footer links and when we changed over to WordPress, because our menus are html now, we dropped them. But you offer a great reason to put them back in. We need to make a widget spot for that and I am considering some text changes for the Home page, so we won't be launching the Responsive site until those are completed. Thanks again!!!
-
Gina -
I've attached a few screenshots showing how the site displays in different widths. The site performs pretty well in the different widths, as you can see. The portfolio page works well, as does the contact information page.
I'd recommend putting in a footer navigation, as a mobile user who is on the bottom of the page might want to navigate that way instead of trying to scroll back up the top of the page.
The menu seems to work well at the tablet size and the smart phone size as well.
Personally, I think that the new responsive site layout is much better than the existing site. The live site has huge, dense blocks of text that make my eyes gloss over, overwhelmed by the volume of content.
Hope this helps!
-- Jeff
fat-eyes-desktop-version.jpg fat-eyes-tablet-version.jpg fat-eyes-iPhone-Version.jpg fat-eyes-phone-layout-menu.jpg
-
Thanks so much, Peter. We actually do have a redesign percolating but that's for later and not to be mixed up with this switch to Responsive. ;o)
-
Hi Jeff,
Here is the link to the dev site: websitetestingserver.com/fateImportant to note is that I just learned that the dev site isn't fully up to date with our current, live site: http://www.fateyes.com.
For instance, the blog directory is several months behind and some of the thumbnail images are missing. This has to be corrected. Not sure why they didn't bring it all over. So before we replace it, it will be fully updated and reviewed. Also, the social counts are missing and/or off but I imagine those will correct to the live site once the transfer is made.
Not sure if this renders your taking a look ill-timed and if it would be better to wait until I can have the guys get it tip top. Please let me know what you think. Thanks again!!! Your help is much appreciated.
-
Hi Gina
I agree with Jeff's comments. If it's a good design and works well then both your current and future customers will all benefit.
Peter
-
Thanks so much, Jeff. I would love to post the link and have you take a look. That would be a terrific help. I don't have the address but as soon as my partner gets back in, I'll ask him for it and post it here.
-
We've recently launched a number of responsive designs for eCommerce companies.
I'd love to tell you that there is zero risk in launching with the new site from a rankings perspective, but because you kept all of the content and the URL structure the same, you've mitigated a lot of the risk.
Google has come out in the past and said that it prefers a responsive design framework, as opposed to an m-dot mobile site + a desktop site, as it doesn't have to worry about duplicate content.
That said, most of the risk is going to be based on how well the responsive site actually performs when a user is on a desktop, tablet and phone.
If the design works well, and isn't confusing to the end user, then go for it.
But if the design is buggy or looks a lot worse (due to the limitations of responsive design), maybe do a bit more testing.
If you'd like, post a link to the site and I'm happy to take a look at how it looks on different devices...
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
-
Reducing cumulative layout shift for responsive images - core web vitals
In preparation for Core Web Vitals becoming a ranking factor in May 2021, we are making efforts to reduce our Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) on pages where the shift is being caused by images loading. The general recommendation is to specify both height and width attributes in the html, in addition to the CSS formatting which is applied when the images load. However, this is problematic in situations where responsive images are being used with different aspect ratios for mobile vs desktop. And where a CMS is being used to manage the pages with images, where width and height may change each time new images are used, as well as aspect ratios for the mobile and desktop versions of those. So, I'm posting this inquiry here to see what kinds of approaches others are taking to reduce CLS in these situations (where responsive images are used, with differing aspect ratios for desktop and mobile, and where a CMS allows the business users to utilize any dimension of images they desire).
Web Design | | seoelevated3 -
Website redesign- change of server . What to do with old site? Keep for a while or delete right away?
Hey Mozzers, Two days ago, we redesigned our website and changed the server at the same time to get faster loading times. Here is what we have done. The old site was hosted on ipage, new site with a new design hosted on UPCLOUD. We changed the A record to the new server, uploaded a new site, submitted a new sitemap to Google Search console, 301 redirected all old URLs to new ones, most have changed a bit. Old URLs were ending with " .html "the new ones do not have that at the end. Submitted AMP pages to Google as well. Now here is my question. Should we delete the old site completely from ipage or should we keep it for a while? Google has indexed the new URLs that were created with the redesign, these URLs did not exist on the old site. But it still shows most of the old URLs on SERPs (these are URLs that have been 301 redirected to a new equivalent page) I understand 2 days is not very long for Google to get everything right, but I am not sure what we should do with the old site? Keep it or get rid of it to help Google index the new one only. FYI every single old URL that appears on Google search when clicked on will take you to the right place, we made sure there are no 404s at all. As this is very important to our business and we get most of it from Google I want to make sure we do it right for SEO purposes. The agency that designed the site did not really know the answer to that question, as they do not have SEO specialists. Please help, any input you might have will be greatly appreciated.
Web Design | | Davit19850 -
Avg Page Load Time Increase After Responsive Web Design
The Avg. Page Load Time has been steadily increasing after our website went responsive. What could have cause this?
Web Design | | JMSCC1 -
Web Designer Needed
So I feel like I've almost convinced my boss to hire out a re-design for our website (which is SORELY needed.) I'm at the step where I need to start finding quotes and site builders. I want a responsive design site built modern and professional... Love the moz site but not responsive enough. My current favorite example is at www.hasoffers.com Does anybody have any suggestions of where to go? And as a bonus, if anybody is brave enough to ballpark what a site like this would cost that would be awesome. Doesn't have to be exact or even that close... Thanks for any advice given.
Web Design | | jesse-landry0 -
Web Design and Development Leads
Friends, Even though we get organic leads related to Web Design and Development we are looking for other sources to buy real time leads related to Web Design and Development. Any pointers are much appreciated. Thank you
Web Design | | INN
Chris0 -
For a web design firm, should i make a google plus local page or company page?
I have a web design firm located in India, At this moment we are focusing on local clients as the current competition in local market is very low. But in few months we will shift our focus to outsourcing. So I wanted to know if we should make a google plus local page and connect it with my google places account and website or should I make a google plus business page and connect it to website? Our major focus is on seo. Thanks
Web Design | | hard0