For quite a while, Google has made clear its preference for responsive web design, but never claimed to rank any particular URL format above another as far as SEO goes. Now, it looks like Google may actually demote websites that are not mobile-friendly. So, if you're looking for a New Year’s resolution, how about going responsive in 2015?
With responsive design, a website’s URL and HTML code stay the same regardless of the type of device it is being viewed on (such as desktop, tablet, or mobile), but the display renders differently (i.e. “responds”) based on the screen size. You can count on perfect readability on any device, along with a well-structured appearance. (Check out our blog “So What’s the Deal with Responsive Sites?” for a more in-depth discussion of responsive design.)
Google prefers responsive websites over redirects.
As an aspect of its overarching goal to improve the internet user experience, Google has rolled out several ranking updates that favor responsive sites over non-responsive sites. According to Google, having one URL makes it easier for internet users to interact with a webpage and enables Google’s “algorithms to assign the indexing properties to your content.” It is also more efficient when Google is crawling your content because Google does not have to crawl multiple pages.
In the past, we offered clients a mobile redirect, which essentially transferred mobile users to a different version of the website that we formatted for mobile use. While having a mobile-friendly option is good, it is not the same as having a responsive site. A responsive redesign involves putting your website on an entirely different platform, not just changing the HTML code.
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