# Responsive Sites, Google, and Smartphone Search



## parodi (Mar 15, 2010)

I haven’t been here for a while. Hi everybody. I’ve been reading a lot in the press about the new Google policy on search ranking for responsive websites and thought I would put my 2 cents in. This is a very long post.

When I came across an article about a half year ago about how Google was going to be punishing sites that were not up to their “mobile friendly” standards I almost crapped myself. I do about a hundred sites--about 12 for painters alone-- and they are all non responsive. I went along with the general hysteria and learned to code responsive sites. FYI a responsive site changes the entire layout of a site so that smartphone users don’t have to “pinch in and out” to navigate the site. If you don’t know what I am talking about here is a responsive site I did last month for a NH business:
http://www.handcraftednhgifts.org/

If you open this site on a PC or laptop you will see what it does in full screen mode. Then if you grab the right side of the window and drag it to the left slowly until you approximate the size of a smartphone screen you will see that the elements rearrange themselves to fit the small screen. Sites of fixed width do not do this and need to be manually pinched or switched to landscape view.

But then I started reading that Google is not “punishing” your non-responsive site for ALL searches. They are saying that your search ranking *may* be affected on searches done on small screens like smartphones and not all the other devices and machines that have browsers.

Then on April 21 when this new Google rule went into effect I was reading astonishing things in the press about how as much as 64% of searches today are done on smartphones? I suppose that would be possible if it concerned ESPN or a news sites where people are checking in and out all day from work … maybe. But 64% people searching for something like a paperhanger or painter? hmmm… I decided to take a closer look because my gut was telling me no. Maybe this is a personal prejudice of mine but there are certain types of sites that I would rather be gelded than navigate through them in small screen format. And it’s not just the small screen either. I want a big pipe (fiber optic) to instantaneously switch from window to window or open and close windows fast like with, say, eBay because I am an impatient SOB. They are saying people would voluntarily do that on lethargic 3G as many areas of the country have or switch back to when there is traffic congestion?

As an example I chose to look at the stats of a painter’s site I host. Let’s say his name is John the Painter in Westchester County NY (where the money is.) I went through his Awstats statistics to see if I could get a handle on who is viewing him and on what devices. Below is a screenshot of all the browsers that visitors were using from January to the present month in 2015 to view John’s site:









If you look waaaay down the list you will see iPhone and Android browsers in the range of .4 to .5% of all visitors! How could that be? But then I realized that loaded on my own Samsung Android phone I have the Chrome and Opera browsers so it is likely that those people using 3rd party apps for browsers on their phones are not being counted as “android” and are appearing to be the same as desktops and laptops further up the list. That had to be part of it. 

I called up my host, Hostmonster, and asked how I could get specific numbers on the number of visits by small screen users. He said that there may at some time be an upgrade of Awstats on their system but I would have to wait. But he said that iPhone and other devices using iOS (the mobile operating system) may be being represented in the “unknown” category down there at the bottom of that screen shot. 

I decided to piece this puzzle together coming from a different angle. I wanted to know what operating systems were being used on the devices of his visitors. If a visitor is logged in as using a machine with Windows 7 loaded it pretty much HAS to be either a PC or a desktop. Here were those results for John’s site:









Fascinating (to me anyway) . Awstats is telling me that from Jan 1 to the present in 2015 74.4% of visitors were using a Windows machine. 

It is also saying that only 1.2% used an Android operating system too. Is it possible to run a Samsung phone on another operating system like Linux or Ubuntu? Yes and yes. Apparently nobody runs their Android on Ubuntu but more people, 2.4% used Linux. 

Now I’m guessing here, that the 18.5% of “Macintosh” users is a composite of Apple desktops, Macbook Airs, iPads and iPhones? That seems to be what it is represented here since all Apple machines are getting put in the same folder which could be labeled “All Apple Stuff”. (I should point out here that iPads with Retina now have a higher resolution than many desktop monitors and as such are not considered by Google to be “small screen” in terms of pixel resolution so apparently they will not be affected by the new Google policy. This increasing resolution trend is also apparent with Galaxy, Nexus and Kindle Fire tablets—resolution-wise they are all getting bigger.) And if that all-inclusive, composite number with Apple devices is the case then would it be reasonable to guesstimate that if 1.2% arrived at John’s site on Android devices that maybe double or triple that number arrived on iPhones? I think it may be fair to say that only 7% of visitors were viewing this painter’s site on a smartphone if that is the case. (1.2 android+ 2.4 linux + 3.6 or so? iPhones)


Then I wondered exactly what percentage of visitors came to John’s site from Google since, for now, they are the only search engine concerned with responsiveness? That estimate of 7% is actually a fraction of a fraction of total visitors. You can see below that John got about ¾ of his traffic from Google—so are we talking about 5% of visitors actually being affected by the new Google rule? (Nowhere even close to 64%!)









As I go through the different painter’s sites in my Awstats dashboard I can see the stats are different for different sites. For instance, one site has only 58% of visitors coming in thru Google. So for every 1,000 visitors to John’s site the 5% of 58% would mean that 29 visitors out of a 1000 are going to possibly experience less of John’s web presence?

I have to reemphasize that Google has said the responsiveness of a site *may* be a factor in search ranking for searches done on smartphones--- not that it necessarily *will* be a factor. There are still many other factors that go into how the googlebots and their algorithms rank you in search. So what does that mean exactly? Does it mean that you may drop from Google mid-page One to bottom page one as you search “painter yourtown USA” on a small screen?

I took screenshots of the Google results page for my sites before and after the April 21 change and so far not one is any different in page ranking. Daily traffic to these sites has also been unchanged in any meaningful way.

So before you plunk down hundreds of dollars or even thousands of dollars to retool for responsiveness I think you need to drill down into your own sites stats and see how cost effective it would be to go after a such small-screen visitor number that may turn out to be very small indeed in your market. However, if you don’t have a website at all be sure that it is designed to be responsive because Google has a penchant for rules changes every 6 months and these may be different in 2016 and on.

For now I would be interested if others, who are into this stuff, could post awstats from their hosts who may have installed a later version and can see exact numbers of smartphone visits and operating versions on those phones.


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## ProWallGuy (Apr 7, 2007)

Interesting post Jim. Hope you are doing well.


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

Looks like I got out just in time :thumbsup:


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

Great topic! I'm not so concerned about Google "punishing" me for being non responsive as I am for the consumer that uses the site and the quality of their experience.
You can check to see if your site is mobile friendly here.. If you are using Wordpress, it is pretty simple to either add the mobile plugin in Jetpak or use a mobile friendly theme.
I use Google Analytics, I find the results are much more accurate, as bots can be included in results from Awstats and Stat Counter, which I use as well because Google won't show IP's.


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## parodi (Mar 15, 2010)

Thanks RCP, I have tried Google Analytics and I get lost immediately. I suppose I could go to youtube tutorials and learn it. 

So what are we looking at in your screenshot? What kind of site is it and what does the 47.67% of "sessions" signify? Is that like "visits" (as opposed to "hits?")

One thing about web design I do know is that I really don't know what people are "experiencing." My awstats says that most people stay on a site from 0 to 30 seconds and then they leave. When a nonresponsive site opens in my Samsung phone I see a thumbnail (the size of the smartphone screen) of the entire home page. As I start to pinch out to see what's there I can zero in on what I might be looking for. Personally I like that. I prefer it to the "long scroll" of every damn item on the site that I have to serially sift through when every element is piled one on top of the other to be "mobile user friendly." 

BTW, now that I am mobile conscious I am surprised at the number of sites that are still fixed width and don't seem to care about responsiveness--I mean how did we ever live before this? 

Then too, it seems to me that if anyone, (like a house painter for instance) is concerned about responsiveness it would behoove them to just have ONE responsive site and not a mobile site as a separate entity apart from their full sized site, don't you think? This cuts down on web person labor and costs every time changes have to be made.


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## RCP (Apr 18, 2007)

parodi said:


> So what are we looking at in your screenshot? What kind of site is it and what does the 47.67% of "sessions" signify? Is that like "visits" (as opposed to "hits?")


That is BP, so not really a painters site, just wanted to show how GA can break down data. Sessions is page views, visits and hits can often be misinterpreted depending on the program. Here is a painters site, I generally see 30-50 percent of users on mobile.




parodi said:


> Then too, it seems to me that if anyone, (like a house painter for instance) is concerned about responsiveness it would behoove them to just have ONE responsive site and not a mobile site as a separate entity apart from their full sized site, don't you think? This cuts down on web person labor and costs every time changes have to be made.


Agree


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## LA Painter (Jul 28, 2009)

You don't NEED a responsive site, you can also make a separate mobile site, and code your main site to redirect to it when someone searches on a phone. The program I use (Everweb) does this with one click.


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## parodi (Mar 15, 2010)

Hi LA Painter. I think the verdict is in on "mobile version vs. responsive design" as far as Google is concerned. 

(Full disclosure here....my #1 concern is always Google page ranking. Call it crass but that is where I'm at. I try my best to get my sites as high as possible on Google Page 1.)

The problem with a mobile version of a website is that it is usually a different domain. Usually it is something like m.joespainting.com as opposed to joespainting.com. This can dilute the strength of the main domain and hurt organic search traffic.

Google Webmasters have said this: "Maintaining a single shared site preserves a canonical URL, avoiding any complicated redirects, and simplifies the sharing of web addresses." To me this means that Google has gone in the direction of putting more search weight into a single domain that has responsive content rather than having two domains. (And as I posted above there is the added complication of maintaining content for two sites.)

Sometimes the "m" site is actually a part of the existing site but is set up to serve different Html/css/ and images with what are called media queries at the same time "pirating" or rather "self-pirating" duplicate content from other pages within the site which Google also frowns on.

There is another problem with m.domains.com and that is that any link building you did to gain inbound link credibility for ranking does not translate to the other site. You need to get dual inbound links. 

IMO the worm has turned and m.domains are going to Netscapeland.

And as I posted about in the OP, I'm not saying don't get a responsive site if you don't have one at all or it you were thinking about updating anyway, what I am questioning is whether the number of mobile visitors warrants what could be a very large amount of money that could arguably be redirected to other traffic inducing SEO strategies.


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## Ultimate (Mar 20, 2011)

Parodi, 

You may be interested in this. Maybe helpful long term. It makes 'responsive' designing very simple once you figure it out. Couple of clicks and done. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKSbxCZcfDU&list=PLaB2IFpIs2-3DVOrW0kzP4Gv6-viyZIbW


This is a great tool to allow you to see changes as you make them. 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...6XAjnq_ZnYxO8762Q&sig2=VOxENjqxr0najOrPWUndBw


Lifesaver for me anyway


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## carls (Jan 15, 2014)

> You don't NEED a responsive site, you can also make a separate mobile site, and code your main site to redirect to it when someone searches on a phone. The program I use (Everweb) does this with one click.


This practice is now considered against best practices and has been for a couple years. It's much easier and more effective to focus your promotion on one URL.

Another aspect of this that I don't see mentioned here is how long it takes Google to actually roll out these changes. The algorithms have to go through BILLIONS of websites. This doesn't happen in a single day. It can take weeks and months for these changes to roll out and affect all sites. Much like how some thought they survived Panda or Penguin without a scratch only to get smacked several weeks or months later.

If your site(s) weren't affected on April 21st there is nothing saying they won't be shortly.

Do you need to do this tomorrow? Probably not... 

Do you need to have a mobile responsive site within the next 12 months? It's certainly not going to hurt your business.


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## Delta Painting (Apr 27, 2010)

I hate mobile sites I would rather pinch and enlarge than have to scroll back and fourth the read the site that is a PITA....


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## Repaintpro (Oct 2, 2012)

Here in Australia mobile and tablet make up 10% of my total site sessions. 

If you do a mobile search on painters gold coast here in Australia you get the paid ads first, then the google+/places ads and then your top ranked sites. If you happen to be ranked say 2-3 then you can often appear 10 spots down the page after the other paid and places ads.

If I want results from mobile searches I use pay per click as even a top ranked site leaves you miles away from being found! 

That said mine has been mobile friendly for about 12 months.


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## carls (Jan 15, 2014)

I just took a look at our logs from a random well ranked painters website we manage and the device stats from Google Search break down like this:

*151 Total Clicks From Organic Google Search (30 days)*

Desktop	84 = 55%
Mobile	41 = 27%
Tablet	26 = 17%

*Total Mobile = 45%*

This is strictly organic Google Search traffic. The site is well ranked in the top 3 spots for dozens of keywords combinations so it's receiving very targeted niche traffic.

An interesting piece of data from this site is that the *CTR* (click through rate) on mobile devices is *4 TIMES* higher than for desktop on this specific site. That is a pretty big deal. If your site offers a horrible mobile experience you are probably losing leads. It's that simple.

Click through rates are how many people click into your site when your search results are displayed.

So if John Smith did a Google Search for "Painting Contractor" and your website was displayed in the search results it would count as an "impression". 

If John liked your serp result and clicked the link to get into your site it's called a "Click Thru".


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## Joseph (Aug 26, 2013)

From what I've been reading it looks like Google is still figuring out how to make a profit out of the whole mobile thing. Either way you look at it I think now's the time to start complying with media specific design.



https://www.calgarypropainting.com/blog/index.php


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## Repaintpro (Oct 2, 2012)

Joseph said:


> From what I've been reading it looks like Google is still figuring out how to make a profit out of the whole mobile thing. Either way you look at it I think now's the time to start complying with media specific design.
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.calgarypropainting.com/blog/index.php



They have Joseph, unless you are in the pay per click section you will be lucky to be found, like I said earlier your No1 ranking painting site will not list until position 5-8 depending on google places size in that search.


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## eWebify (May 14, 2015)

If anyone needs some tips on how to make a responsive design, let me know. I for one would go with the responsive design rather than a separate mobile site. From all my experience with users a majority of them prefer a responsive site or the normal site over a mobile site.

Responsive can take some time especially if you already have a pretty large site with a lot of customization so of course it is better to do it originally when the site was designed but for most of us that never happened because of how new everything is in the mobile side of the internet.


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## Delta Painting (Apr 27, 2010)

A great read on the topic...

http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2408249/the-importance-of-listening-to-google


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## DKMarketing (May 15, 2015)

Just a heads up - If anyone is interested in how google's new update impacts their website, we just published an article on BloggingPainters.com: http://bloggingpainters.com/why-your-website-should-be-mobile-friendly/


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