Last week (June 5th) Google initiated a major
change. This change will only affect smartphone users, but could potentially
have a devastating effect on your website (say the pessimists). It will be a
while before we can talk about the real impact of this change, but it could be
quite bad.
The issue is mobile optimisation.
(Yes, you hear a lot about
that on this blog!)
Not everyone’s website is optimised for mobiles, and
sometimes websites are optimised badly. In the cases of poor optimisation, the
following might occur:
This annoys a lot of mobile users.
A good workaround as the website owner is to prevent the
redirect happening if your mobile website doesn’t have a corresponding page, so
mobile users can stay on the desktop website. Obviously this isn’t ideal,
because your mobile website will just be gathering dust, but it’s the best you
can do.
Dedicated mobile websites usually do not have mobile
versions of every page of your main website; they’re much more condensed to
make them mobile-friendly. So if a mobile user is clicking on the desktop
version of a webpage that you don’t have a mobile version of, then when they
click it they may just get redirected to your homepage.
Google has recognised that this is an annoyance to its
mobile users, so it has taken action. Google will now warn smartphone users if
the website they are about to click on will redirect them to the homepage of a
mobile website version. They will have the option to “Try Anyway”, but make no
mistake; this will put people off your website.
 |
| Google: "Not my problem!" |
So with this move, Google is essentially saying:
“This website isn't fully mobile optimised, so you probably
shouldn't bother with it. P.S. It’s nothing to do with us!”
And no, cynics, Google isn’t being paid by online marketing
businesses like Vital Hike. They just want you to use responsive web design
from now on!
So what exactly is Google saying about my website?
Well, firstly, it should only be seen on smartphone Google
searches, because the problem is tied to smartphone users being incorrectly
sent to the wrong URL. Google are officially referring to this as a “Faulty
Redirect”. Secondly, you should start seeing the warning on your phone over the
summer, as the warning is being rolled out gradually.
From now on, when Google detects that smartphone users will
be redirected to a mobile-version homepage, instead of the result they want,
they will stick a warning in below the search result, as you can see below.
 |
| Google warns smartphone users about faulty redirects. Source: Google Webmaster Central Blog |
Users will have the option to proceed anyway and try to find
the information they want by manually searching through the mobile website, but
it’s unlikely a lot of people will do this. This warning is a deterrent. Some
web users will see the warning above, and think it’s somehow related to a
virus. Don’t dismiss this as something you can ignore.
Along with this little alert on search results, Google will
message the website owner in Webmaster
Tools (a free website monitoring service offered by Google) and inform them
when a faulty redirect has occurred.
But faulty redirects can be fixed!
You can set up your server so that it redirects smartphone
users to the correct URL on your mobile website. Unfortunately if you don’t
have a corresponding URL on your dedicated mobile website, then all you can do
is keep users on the desktop page instead of having them redirected to the
mobile homepage. But that’s still something.
A final solution is to use a responsive website design in
the first place, as this will serve up the same content for desktop and smartphone
users alike. Ideally you would need to ensure your website is built
responsively from day one, but sometimes these things can’t be helped!
This is now one major drawback to dedicated mobile websites.
Since the change was only made on Google last week we’ll have to sit back and
wait for the true impact; it’s too early for Doomsday predictions.
What could happen as a result of this Google warning?
Potentially, we’re looking at three results here;
1. Less visitors to
your website. If your website gets traffic from smartphone users and you
have a dedicated mobile website with less pages than your desktop website, then
you may see your visitor numbers drop. The drop in numbers will be from people
who perform Google searches on their smartphones; they’ll see the new warning
from Google & choose to keep browsing for another website.
2. More visitors to your website.
If your website gets traffic from smartphone users and was created with a
responsive website design, then you may catch all the visitors that are no
longer bothering with dedicated mobile websites! Good news for some, right? So
all the people who see the Google warning and decide not to bother with the besmirched
website, may end up at your website because with a responsive website design
there should be no faulty redirects and therefore no warnings.
3. Insignificant
change. Website visitor numbers vary on a day-to-day basis, so you may not
even notice the number of smartphone visitors you lose. This could be the case
for your website if you don’t get a lot of smartphone traffic anyway.
Alternatively, if you correct a faulty redirect and just let smartphone users
stay at the desktop website, the Google warning should be removed from your
website and you will have minimised the impact.
Is my mobile website creating faulty redirects?
To test if your mobile website is creating a faulty redirect
to the mobile homepage, do a quick google search on your smartphone for content
you know is contained within your website, but not your mobile website.
If you click on a desktop website link, but end up on your
mobile website’s homepage, then you are a faulty redirector!
The websites most likely to be redirecting falsely are those
with dedicated mobile websites; if you have a responsive website design you’re
safe.
Can I fix my faulty redirect?
Yes. What you can do is cancel the redirect code, and
instead let the smartphone user stay on your desktop website. The bad news with
this is your mobile website is gathering dust while you redirect smartphone
users back to your desktop website. If you don’t feel able to do this yourself,
you should contact your web team.
Want a permanent fix that maintains your sleek mobile web
presence?
Responsive Website Design is the way to go. Google has
already advised people to go with a Responsive Website Design on their official recommendations, and it seems they’re pretty
eager for you to listen!
Drop us an email or call in for a quick
chat about how we can help you with this.
Responsive Website
Designs and Smart Online Marketing,
At Vital Hike
Previous Blog:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Got a question about what we talked about above? Or did we leave something out?
Pop your comment in the box below and hit Publish!