2 ms·

Google didn't create the switch to mobile, they are years late to the party. Apple initiated the mobile smartphone revolution. Now billions of people are coming

Google didn't create the switch to mobile, they are years late to the party. Apple initiated the mobile smartphone revolution. Now billions of people are coming online, many of whom never ever had a desktop with internet, especially in developing companies. This is a disruptive change, and it is undeniable reality. Even if Google didn't change the mobile search ranking, eventually non-mobile ready sites would lose traffic from frustrated users picking alternatives that are mobile optimized. What would happen is, mobile users would say "man, Google Search sucks, every time I search for a site, it gives these horrible, slow to load, hard to use sites on my phone" At some point, a competitor, possibly even Apple, would release a mobile-ranked search engine. Maybe they'll be a button to get the desktop results even on mobile, or maybe "Request Desktop Site" in the mobile browser will give you Google Desktop search. But to blame Google because you're going to eventually be forced to update your site is just laziness. It's not Google who brought this on, it's your customers. They've changed their access patterns, and if you want your business to thrive, to you need to follow your customers. Sometimes that even means native apps in app stores. I'd say this is a good wakeup call and really, Google took way too long to seriously target the mobile Web. Chrome only recently got Add to Home Screen and Push Notifications, two of the biggest things missing. We're now 8 years post iPhone (2007). The fact that Search ranking is just now, almost a decade later, targeting mobile friendly means Google was seriously lagging the usage patterns of most of the world.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago
I find it very hard to believe that people are blaming content on search engines. If a site doesn't look right, I blame the site. I also find it hard to justify that even if they did, that somehow Google has a responsibility to unilaterally police the web via pagerank punishments.
- URSpider94 12y ago
  It's not that people blame Google for the site looking crappy, but they do blame Google if the top search results aren't useful -- and that includes the site being unusable. Google also makes a huge amount of its revenue off of pay-per-click display advertising, and if it's referring customers all day long (through organic search) to sites that don't convert, then it's bad for everyone. This is nowhere near the first pagerank modifier based on site performance -- it's well-known that Google penalizes sites that are slow to load, because users click away from those sites more frequently.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

I find it very hard to believe that people are blaming content on search engines. If a site doesn't look right, I blame the site. I also find it hard to justify that even if they did, that somehow Google has a responsibility to unilaterally police the web via pagerank punishments.

URSpider94 12y ago
It's not that people blame Google for the site looking crappy, but they do blame Google if the top search results aren't useful -- and that includes the site being unusable. Google also makes a huge amount of its revenue off of pay-per-click display advertising, and if it's referring customers all day long (through organic search) to sites that don't convert, then it's bad for everyone. This is nowhere near the first pagerank modifier based on site performance -- it's well-known that Google penalizes sites that are slow to load, because users click away from those sites more frequently.