Responsive Website and Google Ranking

[slappyJmarsden]

I have a number of older websites that do not utilize a responsive website design. Although they do have mobile versions if you are accessing them from a smartphone.

 

Some of my clients are getting emails from Google about getting a lower ranking if a responsive website is not implemented.

 

Seems like a lot of work to redo these sites.

 

How are all you web designers adapting to this change?

 

 

[ashpowell]

I thought it was more mobile friendly rather than responsive design... So if you already have mobile versions of the site adding canonical and alternate tags should do... I'm not 100% sure though so double check.

 

Test if your site is mobile-friendly here:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

 

And read up on seperate urls for mobile content here.. it seems it would suffice:

https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/configurations/separate-urls

[Mike]

Web designers? Probably nothing... they just design the site

 

I expect it's more the "Mobile friendly" thing Google rolled out and will be showing sites that are mobile friendly higher to mobile users so they get a better experience.

 

How to deal with it? Charge your clients if they want their site to be mobile friendly, unless you said it would be and it's not, in which case, fix it.

[Obry]

I use Bootstrap for all my projects these days and make sure they look good on mobile first and then on the desktop obviously. For me it's easier to build a responsive site with Bootstrap than do two separate versions. I get the benefits of it (more tailored, less bandwidth, etc) but for the types of projects we do a responsive site is enough (we generally don't use heavy imagery or compress well the bigger images that we do use, etc).

[Steve H.]

If you have websites which are not mobile friendly, it is wise to redesign the sites using responsive frameworks or better yet use media query to create your own mobile friendly sites. The benefit of converting to mobile friendly site are many. Chances are that some visitors (on mobile devices) who are accessing your old website will drop if your site is not mobile friendly nowadays.

[+John Teacake MVC]

Some of my clients are getting emails from Google about getting a lower ranking if a responsive website is not implemented.

 

.... You must have some fairly decent sized clients