8 ms·

Changes in rankings of smartphone search results

293 points by huskyr 13y ago

lignuist 13y ago
Finally. This is such an annoying behavior. I wouldn't complain about a small info bubble, but assuming that all visitors comming from a search engine want to install an app before they even know the site is simply ridiculous.
hayksaakian 13y ago
Thank god. If I'm on Google search, I want a proper web site.
ars 13y ago
Headline is inaccurate - they don't downrank for redirects. They downrank for redirects to the mobile homepage instead of the mobile specific page. I didn't see anything in there about app banners. (In case it's changed the headline currently says: "Google downranks sites that do mobile redirects / app banners".)
- huskyr 13y ago
  Thanks, i've changed the headline.
  - danmaz74 13y ago
    To make it even clearer you could add an always: "... that always redirect...". How it is now it's still pretty cryptic :)
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
- WickyNilliams 13y ago
  Originally the article (at least when i read earlier today) did contain advice about app popups etc EDIT: seems it was a different, but very similar article - https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/common-mistakes https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/co...
bru 13y ago
Finally. Websites in the tech sphere are usually mobile friendly (because they live on the edge of modernity or because they are bare bones and content-centric), but "common" websites often offer a poor mobile experience. Google penalising this is good news for the consumer. However one point that is not addressed in the article: what about websites that make you go through a first page/pop-up which proposes you to download their app every time[1]? That is an annoying behaviour that I'd like to see penalised as well. And as usual there is a relevant XKCD comic: http://xkcd.com/869/ http://xkcd.com/869/ [1] here, in France, most newspapers websites do this. Main result is that I do not read news on my phone any more - not a big loss actually.
- lostlogin 13y ago
  If only they also down ranked site with total POS mobile sites. Extremely low res graphics, minimal information, massive text. I'm not blind. I'm not half brain dead. I'm just on a phone - your standard site is fine. Have a look at https://touch.trademe.co.nz/ https://touch.trademe.co.nz/
  - pyre 13y ago
    Standard sites aren't always fine. For example, sites where the UI relies on mouse hovering.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  There's actually two relevant xkcd comics, here's the second: http://xkcd.com/1174/ http://xkcd.com/1174/
  - slacka 13y ago
    I actually prefer the mobile versions that let you set font size on mobile. For example, when zoomed out in HN comments to a level where I don't need to scroll horizontally, the text is impossible to read on low DPI devices like my 3GS. HN would benefit from this. But I hate not being able to zoom. Perfect example, wikipedia. If sites offered a version like the iOS Safari reader gives you, they would be a plus. Unfortunately, most get it wrong.
philjackson 13y ago
Good news. Something I also find frustrating is when this happens, so I click back and it takes me to the place chucking the 302 causing the redirect again. So, have to click back twice and hope it's quick enough to get me to where I was.
Udo 13y ago
To be clear, they're punishing faulty redirects where visitors are clicking on a search result and get forwarded to a completely irrelevant mobile page. Personally, I hope mobile pages in general die a horrible death, but that's probably decades away.
- kristofferR 13y ago
  I'm pretty damn confident that the internet decades from now won't be a flat box on a rectangular display like it is today. ;) In 2040 the net will at the very least be seamlessly integrated into our eye sight though lenses (or even digital eyes for the hardcore geeks), maybe even directly feeding information into our brains.
  - sillysaurus 13y ago
    In 2040 the net will at the very least be seamlessly integrated into our eye sight though lenses (or even digital eyes for the hardcore geeks Like a science-fiction writer, one must be careful with predictive dates. The best algorithm seems to be: take your initial guess and triple it. For example, since 1984 was published in 1949, 3x that would yield 2089, which seems a reasonable time frame to move our society from our current status into the complete dystopia the book predicts. So your digital eyes should be coming out in 2094 or so, shortly after the Ministry of Truth begins erasing words from history books.
    - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
      Sometimes its take your best guess and half it. We are really bad at predicting the future.
    - kristofferR 13y ago
      I did overestimate it. :) I actually consider it very likely that good visual prostheses/digital eyes will exist already in 2025, 2040 is more than 2x that (2025-2013=12 12*2=24 2013+24=2037) Very primitive digital eyes already exist: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/149106-the-first-real-high-resolution-user-configurable-bionic-eye http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/149106-the-first-real-hig... I think it's quite likely that we're able to improve the technology a lot quite quickly, a lot of projects doing just that is underway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_prosthetic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_prosthetic
jamesjguthrie 13y ago
I really dislike websites that present me with an 'optimised' mobile website on my Galaxy phone. I'd much rather pinch and zoom than have less content than the real website. Also, websites that do this on my iPad Retina and make me choose the 'Request desktop site' option REALLY annoy me. The screen's huge! There's no need for it.
joshuak 13y ago
Please. Don't. Make. Mobile. Versions. Of. Your. Website!!11!1!!! Ask yourself, are you going to put in the same amount of design and content work into the mobile site as the main site? Really? Aren't you just changing the links to buttons, and reusing the content? Be honest. The one exception is if you are implementing a proper full stack html 5 application. With truly valuable features over the standard website (but then why haven't you done that for the main site too?). Even then, always have a path back to the main site, and keep an eye out for how often that link gets used.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  What is wrong with reusing content? When I visit a site on mobile I don't want different content because I happen to be using a different device.
  - joshuak 13y ago
    Precisely. There is nothing wrong with reusing your content, so then why would you need a new interface for it? When you do truly need a new interface to something it's because the nature of the something is different. True mobile apps don't use and apply content the same as a web site any more then a video game is a movie.
    - jiggy2011 13y ago
      I don't think there's anything wrong with simply using the same content under a different layout that is optimized for smaller screens/touch.
      - joshuak 13y ago
        I suggest you do a quick survey of the replies to this thread. Most people HATE it. Apple designed a browser that addresses the size issue, no reason to do it again poorly. I also suspect that developers, such as myself, are looking at a site on several platforms and so automatically compare them, but when a user focuses on their phone it fills their perception. Giving people bigger buttons, and text might seem nicer initially, but it's usually very aggravating when the scaling is locked and with the real site you can scale the text even bigger then the choice you made for the user. Plus many other issues with content relationships (text and images say), usability, etc. If your designers are going to put as much effort into the mobile site layout as they did to the main site then maybe, but I have yet to see that happen.
buro9 13y ago
This appears to cover automated (Location header) redirects, but it is not mentioned whether it covers the far more numerous sites that use overlays to advertise a mobile app and incorrectly redirect to the mobile home page when the overlay is dismissed. Which is the same effect as the Location header redirect, but far more annoying (as you actually got to see the content you wanted for a brief moment behind the overlay).
matthewmacleod 13y ago
Good, it's about time this happened. There's little more frustrating as a website user than attempting to visit a page that precisely matches your query, only to be forced to try and navigate there from the home page. Awful, awful UX, and in some cases it is literally impossible to view content on a perfectly capable device without switching browsers or UAs. Ideally everything would be nice and responsive, although in some cases we've found that the requirements of mobile users can be very different from those of desktop users. Still a bit of a tricky nut to crack.
brador 13y ago
Any idea when Google will be downranking sites that pop up 'download our app' alerts? Also those annoying sites that load content using 10 second javascript loading circles?
- croisillon 13y ago
  That would be bad for blogspot then...
- freehunter 13y ago
  "This forum has a mobile app! Click here to download Tapatalk for Android!"
Uchikoma 13y ago
Not happy with that decision. (We don`t do redirects) After working for some time with iOS we recognized that an "app" suites our customers on mobile better than a "site". So we have a classic website for ecommerce, and a rich client application for mobile devices (HTML5, Angular). Both have very different domains and layouts, there is no 1:1 mapping possible except for the most basic features. The RIA page is optimized for gestures, orientation changes etc. Contrary to mainstream opinion we believe mobile (for ecommerce, where people interact with a site, not newspaper sites etc.) is different from desktop (mouse, keyboard, large screen) and not just a "responsive" small version of your site (or desktop just a larger version of your mobile first site).
- bolster 13y ago
  I think you missed the point. It's not about defining what experience people get, it's that as they are coming into your site, they get the right experience for your content on their device, regardless of whether they were given a desktop link on a mobile device or visa versa. As demonstrated in the diagram, this is punishing people who strip the tails off incoming links so the link example.org/stories/good-news-everyone gets directed to m.example.org and the user is left with the mobile experience, but the wrong content.
  - Uchikoma 13y ago
    Then we should show up in the Google search results with different urls depending on the device used for the search. There is no 1:1 mapping of site to mobile "pages" with a RIA.
- ig1 13y ago
  How does that matter ? - when a user clicks on a search result they expect to get the content described in the snippet. If you're unable to deliver that content on mobile then it makes perfect sense for you not to show up in the search results. If a user is searching for a product and they click on the link to that product in an ecommerce store, they want a product page not your app.
  - 13y ago
downandout 13y ago
I can't explain how happy I am to see this. The fact that this has ever happened on major sites shows the low quality of web developers currently employed at huge sites. Once you understand the problem, it's a very easy fix for a single developer, so this shows that in large, well-financed development teams, not a single person recognized this as an issue. That is scary. Hopefully these sites will be quickly purged from all results until they get their act together.
bartkappenburg 13y ago
The title is a (little) bit misleading. I should state: "Google downranks sites that redirect all mobile requests to homepage" Ie. There is nothing wrong with redirecting a mobile client to the mobile homepage if the mobile user asked for the homepage.
hmottestad 13y ago
I actually had the opposite problem when I was given a link to a mobile page and opened it on my ipad. Then the page recognised that I was using an ipad and redirected me to the front page. The link is from a norwegian financial newspaper: http://mobil.dn.no/c.jsp?cid=25531331&rssid=25549661&item=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dn.no%2Ffeed%2Fmobiletech%2Farticle%3Faid%3D2626780 http://mobil.dn.no/c.jsp?cid=25531331&rssid=25549661&item=ht...
Systemic33 13y ago
> and at Google we want them to experience the full richness of the web. Except when the smartphone is a Windows Phone, in which case Google is happy to deliver a CSS stripped website to you. Check a side-by-side iPhone | Windows Phone comparison: http://imgur.com/a/lquYZ#0 http://imgur.com/a/lquYZ#0
- sirn 13y ago
  Actually, they do that for all non-WebKit browsers. Firefox Mobile get this too.
  - Systemic33 13y ago
    It's really an excellent example of Google's "Do no evil" is a joke. Something about this quote seems very familiar... "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Batman
louischatriot 13y ago
At last !
FollowSteph3 13y ago
Am I reading this right: "Unplayable videos on smartphone devices. Many websites embed videos in a way that works well on desktops but is unplayable on smartphone devices. For example, if content requires Adobe Flash, it won't be playable on an iPhone or on Android versions 4.1 and higher" So if your site has flash content and no mobile friendly version you're penalized, well isn't this in essence saying you're being penalized to use flash because almost no one who uses flash has a non-flash version. I don't use flash, but a lot of sites do. Yes it's more for media but where and how exactly is that line drawn.... PS: I think it's a good idea to penalize search results that redirects to the home page for mobile users. You find what you're looking for in google, then can only go to the landing page and good luck fr there. It's just silly.
homosaur 13y ago
I'd like to also see downranking for sites that immediately send you to a splash to download their stupid app, which is maybe the 2nd most profoundly annoying mobile behavior. Most of these are doing this with JS overlays and not actual URL redirects, so they won't be affected by this redirect penalty, but lord how they should be.
feintruled 13y ago
Similarly, what's with Youtube videos that tell me "the user has chosen not to make this video viewable on mobile devices". Why does Google offer such an option, and why would anybody choose it?
- bergie 13y ago
  Theoretically this could be a content licensing issue. Some music companies for example could prohibit delivery to mobile as they want to squeeze separate money for that.
bhauer 13y ago
How about downranking sites that do not redirect back to their desktop variants when a mobile URL is shared and then consumed by a desktop user? Mobile sites can be consumed on desktop browsers, but the experience is not always as good. I find it odd that the redirect is typically only unidirectional.
- exodust 13y ago
  Yes you're right that this is also a problem. Along with mobile versions of sites that offer no link to the desktop and vice-versa. Some smartphone users might not want the mobile version for whatever reason. Luckily there's browsers such as Firefox for Android that allow add-ons. One of the add-ons I have is called Phony which tricks the website into thinking you're on a desktop browser. Often the browser's built-in "request desktop" option is not good enough because the website uses modernizer or something like that to determine if you're mobile.
huttondh 13y ago
I think the important thing being discussed here is devaluing versus penalization. Downranking sites because other sites are serving content/users more effectively isn't a penalization it's a downrank. It's also no different than your desktop site being downranked because someone has built a better performing, better delivering site. Penalization is a completely different animal where your site is removed from SERP's. It really just comes down to creating a good user experience and they aren't going to value a mobile site doing a catch all redirect to a mobile homepage just like they wouldn't carry the same value for a desktop site that gets rebuilt and does a catch all redirect from the old site to the new.

293 points by huskyr 13y ago

Finally. This is such an annoying behavior. I wouldn't complain about a small info bubble, but assuming that all visitors comming from a search engine want to install an app before they even know the site is simply ridiculous.

hayksaakian 13y ago

Thank god. If I'm on Google search, I want a proper web site.

ars 13y ago

Headline is inaccurate - they don't downrank for redirects. They downrank for redirects to the mobile homepage instead of the mobile specific page. I didn't see anything in there about app banners. (In case it's changed the headline currently says: "Google downranks sites that do mobile redirects / app banners".)

huskyr 13y ago
Thanks, i've changed the headline.
- danmaz74 13y ago
  To make it even clearer you could add an always: "... that always redirect...". How it is now it's still pretty cryptic :)
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
WickyNilliams 13y ago
Originally the article (at least when i read earlier today) did contain advice about app popups etc EDIT: seems it was a different, but very similar article - https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/common-mistakes https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/co...

bru 13y ago

Finally. Websites in the tech sphere are usually mobile friendly (because they live on the edge of modernity or because they are bare bones and content-centric), but "common" websites often offer a poor mobile experience. Google penalising this is good news for the consumer. However one point that is not addressed in the article: what about websites that make you go through a first page/pop-up which proposes you to download their app every time[1]? That is an annoying behaviour that I'd like to see penalised as well. And as usual there is a relevant XKCD comic: http://xkcd.com/869/ http://xkcd.com/869/ [1] here, in France, most newspapers websites do this. Main result is that I do not read news on my phone any more - not a big loss actually.

lostlogin 13y ago
If only they also down ranked site with total POS mobile sites. Extremely low res graphics, minimal information, massive text. I'm not blind. I'm not half brain dead. I'm just on a phone - your standard site is fine. Have a look at https://touch.trademe.co.nz/ https://touch.trademe.co.nz/
- pyre 13y ago
  Standard sites aren't always fine. For example, sites where the UI relies on mouse hovering.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
There's actually two relevant xkcd comics, here's the second: http://xkcd.com/1174/ http://xkcd.com/1174/
- slacka 13y ago
  I actually prefer the mobile versions that let you set font size on mobile. For example, when zoomed out in HN comments to a level where I don't need to scroll horizontally, the text is impossible to read on low DPI devices like my 3GS. HN would benefit from this. But I hate not being able to zoom. Perfect example, wikipedia. If sites offered a version like the iOS Safari reader gives you, they would be a plus. Unfortunately, most get it wrong.

philjackson 13y ago

Good news. Something I also find frustrating is when this happens, so I click back and it takes me to the place chucking the 302 causing the redirect again. So, have to click back twice and hope it's quick enough to get me to where I was.

Udo 13y ago

To be clear, they're punishing faulty redirects where visitors are clicking on a search result and get forwarded to a completely irrelevant mobile page. Personally, I hope mobile pages in general die a horrible death, but that's probably decades away.

kristofferR 13y ago
I'm pretty damn confident that the internet decades from now won't be a flat box on a rectangular display like it is today. ;) In 2040 the net will at the very least be seamlessly integrated into our eye sight though lenses (or even digital eyes for the hardcore geeks), maybe even directly feeding information into our brains.
- sillysaurus 13y ago
  In 2040 the net will at the very least be seamlessly integrated into our eye sight though lenses (or even digital eyes for the hardcore geeks Like a science-fiction writer, one must be careful with predictive dates. The best algorithm seems to be: take your initial guess and triple it. For example, since 1984 was published in 1949, 3x that would yield 2089, which seems a reasonable time frame to move our society from our current status into the complete dystopia the book predicts. So your digital eyes should be coming out in 2094 or so, shortly after the Ministry of Truth begins erasing words from history books.
  - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    Sometimes its take your best guess and half it. We are really bad at predicting the future.
  - kristofferR 13y ago
    I did overestimate it. :) I actually consider it very likely that good visual prostheses/digital eyes will exist already in 2025, 2040 is more than 2x that (2025-2013=12 12*2=24 2013+24=2037) Very primitive digital eyes already exist: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/149106-the-first-real-high-resolution-user-configurable-bionic-eye http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/149106-the-first-real-hig... I think it's quite likely that we're able to improve the technology a lot quite quickly, a lot of projects doing just that is underway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_prosthetic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_prosthetic

jamesjguthrie 13y ago

I really dislike websites that present me with an 'optimised' mobile website on my Galaxy phone. I'd much rather pinch and zoom than have less content than the real website. Also, websites that do this on my iPad Retina and make me choose the 'Request desktop site' option REALLY annoy me. The screen's huge! There's no need for it.

joshuak 13y ago

Please. Don't. Make. Mobile. Versions. Of. Your. Website!!11!1!!! Ask yourself, are you going to put in the same amount of design and content work into the mobile site as the main site? Really? Aren't you just changing the links to buttons, and reusing the content? Be honest. The one exception is if you are implementing a proper full stack html 5 application. With truly valuable features over the standard website (but then why haven't you done that for the main site too?). Even then, always have a path back to the main site, and keep an eye out for how often that link gets used.

jiggy2011 13y ago
What is wrong with reusing content? When I visit a site on mobile I don't want different content because I happen to be using a different device.
- joshuak 13y ago
  Precisely. There is nothing wrong with reusing your content, so then why would you need a new interface for it? When you do truly need a new interface to something it's because the nature of the something is different. True mobile apps don't use and apply content the same as a web site any more then a video game is a movie.
  - jiggy2011 13y ago
    I don't think there's anything wrong with simply using the same content under a different layout that is optimized for smaller screens/touch.
    - joshuak 13y ago
      I suggest you do a quick survey of the replies to this thread. Most people HATE it. Apple designed a browser that addresses the size issue, no reason to do it again poorly. I also suspect that developers, such as myself, are looking at a site on several platforms and so automatically compare them, but when a user focuses on their phone it fills their perception. Giving people bigger buttons, and text might seem nicer initially, but it's usually very aggravating when the scaling is locked and with the real site you can scale the text even bigger then the choice you made for the user. Plus many other issues with content relationships (text and images say), usability, etc. If your designers are going to put as much effort into the mobile site layout as they did to the main site then maybe, but I have yet to see that happen.

buro9 13y ago

This appears to cover automated (Location header) redirects, but it is not mentioned whether it covers the far more numerous sites that use overlays to advertise a mobile app and incorrectly redirect to the mobile home page when the overlay is dismissed. Which is the same effect as the Location header redirect, but far more annoying (as you actually got to see the content you wanted for a brief moment behind the overlay).

matthewmacleod 13y ago

Good, it's about time this happened. There's little more frustrating as a website user than attempting to visit a page that precisely matches your query, only to be forced to try and navigate there from the home page. Awful, awful UX, and in some cases it is literally impossible to view content on a perfectly capable device without switching browsers or UAs. Ideally everything would be nice and responsive, although in some cases we've found that the requirements of mobile users can be very different from those of desktop users. Still a bit of a tricky nut to crack.

brador 13y ago

Any idea when Google will be downranking sites that pop up 'download our app' alerts? Also those annoying sites that load content using 10 second javascript loading circles?

croisillon 13y ago
That would be bad for blogspot then...
freehunter 13y ago
"This forum has a mobile app! Click here to download Tapatalk for Android!"

Uchikoma 13y ago

Not happy with that decision. (We don`t do redirects) After working for some time with iOS we recognized that an "app" suites our customers on mobile better than a "site". So we have a classic website for ecommerce, and a rich client application for mobile devices (HTML5, Angular). Both have very different domains and layouts, there is no 1:1 mapping possible except for the most basic features. The RIA page is optimized for gestures, orientation changes etc. Contrary to mainstream opinion we believe mobile (for ecommerce, where people interact with a site, not newspaper sites etc.) is different from desktop (mouse, keyboard, large screen) and not just a "responsive" small version of your site (or desktop just a larger version of your mobile first site).

bolster 13y ago
I think you missed the point. It's not about defining what experience people get, it's that as they are coming into your site, they get the right experience for your content on their device, regardless of whether they were given a desktop link on a mobile device or visa versa. As demonstrated in the diagram, this is punishing people who strip the tails off incoming links so the link example.org/stories/good-news-everyone gets directed to m.example.org and the user is left with the mobile experience, but the wrong content.
- Uchikoma 13y ago
  Then we should show up in the Google search results with different urls depending on the device used for the search. There is no 1:1 mapping of site to mobile "pages" with a RIA.
ig1 13y ago
How does that matter ? - when a user clicks on a search result they expect to get the content described in the snippet. If you're unable to deliver that content on mobile then it makes perfect sense for you not to show up in the search results. If a user is searching for a product and they click on the link to that product in an ecommerce store, they want a product page not your app.
- 13y ago

downandout 13y ago

I can't explain how happy I am to see this. The fact that this has ever happened on major sites shows the low quality of web developers currently employed at huge sites. Once you understand the problem, it's a very easy fix for a single developer, so this shows that in large, well-financed development teams, not a single person recognized this as an issue. That is scary. Hopefully these sites will be quickly purged from all results until they get their act together.

bartkappenburg 13y ago

The title is a (little) bit misleading. I should state: "Google downranks sites that redirect all mobile requests to homepage" Ie. There is nothing wrong with redirecting a mobile client to the mobile homepage if the mobile user asked for the homepage.

hmottestad 13y ago

I actually had the opposite problem when I was given a link to a mobile page and opened it on my ipad. Then the page recognised that I was using an ipad and redirected me to the front page. The link is from a norwegian financial newspaper: http://mobil.dn.no/c.jsp?cid=25531331&rssid=25549661&item=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dn.no%2Ffeed%2Fmobiletech%2Farticle%3Faid%3D2626780 http://mobil.dn.no/c.jsp?cid=25531331&rssid=25549661&item=ht...

Systemic33 13y ago

> and at Google we want them to experience the full richness of the web. Except when the smartphone is a Windows Phone, in which case Google is happy to deliver a CSS stripped website to you. Check a side-by-side iPhone | Windows Phone comparison: http://imgur.com/a/lquYZ#0 http://imgur.com/a/lquYZ#0

sirn 13y ago
Actually, they do that for all non-WebKit browsers. Firefox Mobile get this too.
- Systemic33 13y ago
  It's really an excellent example of Google's "Do no evil" is a joke. Something about this quote seems very familiar... "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Batman

louischatriot 13y ago

At last !

FollowSteph3 13y ago

Am I reading this right: "Unplayable videos on smartphone devices. Many websites embed videos in a way that works well on desktops but is unplayable on smartphone devices. For example, if content requires Adobe Flash, it won't be playable on an iPhone or on Android versions 4.1 and higher" So if your site has flash content and no mobile friendly version you're penalized, well isn't this in essence saying you're being penalized to use flash because almost no one who uses flash has a non-flash version. I don't use flash, but a lot of sites do. Yes it's more for media but where and how exactly is that line drawn.... PS: I think it's a good idea to penalize search results that redirects to the home page for mobile users. You find what you're looking for in google, then can only go to the landing page and good luck fr there. It's just silly.

homosaur 13y ago

I'd like to also see downranking for sites that immediately send you to a splash to download their stupid app, which is maybe the 2nd most profoundly annoying mobile behavior. Most of these are doing this with JS overlays and not actual URL redirects, so they won't be affected by this redirect penalty, but lord how they should be.

feintruled 13y ago

Similarly, what's with Youtube videos that tell me "the user has chosen not to make this video viewable on mobile devices". Why does Google offer such an option, and why would anybody choose it?

bergie 13y ago
Theoretically this could be a content licensing issue. Some music companies for example could prohibit delivery to mobile as they want to squeeze separate money for that.

bhauer 13y ago

How about downranking sites that do not redirect back to their desktop variants when a mobile URL is shared and then consumed by a desktop user? Mobile sites can be consumed on desktop browsers, but the experience is not always as good. I find it odd that the redirect is typically only unidirectional.

exodust 13y ago
Yes you're right that this is also a problem. Along with mobile versions of sites that offer no link to the desktop and vice-versa. Some smartphone users might not want the mobile version for whatever reason. Luckily there's browsers such as Firefox for Android that allow add-ons. One of the add-ons I have is called Phony which tricks the website into thinking you're on a desktop browser. Often the browser's built-in "request desktop" option is not good enough because the website uses modernizer or something like that to determine if you're mobile.

huttondh 13y ago

I think the important thing being discussed here is devaluing versus penalization. Downranking sites because other sites are serving content/users more effectively isn't a penalization it's a downrank. It's also no different than your desktop site being downranked because someone has built a better performing, better delivering site. Penalization is a completely different animal where your site is removed from SERP's. It really just comes down to creating a good user experience and they aren't going to value a mobile site doing a catch all redirect to a mobile homepage just like they wouldn't carry the same value for a desktop site that gets rebuilt and does a catch all redirect from the old site to the new.