Google has become the go-to search engine for most all Internet users across all devices, and they’re anticipating mobile searches to surpass desktop searches through this year. Acknowledging the browser technologies incompatible with the browsing device, a common annoyance we all endure when searching on mobile, Google has implemented algorithms that will actively detect pages and alert a smartphone user that they are not supported by the browsing device.
An example posted by the Google Webmasters shows a Flash site annotated for a mobile browsing user:
This example shows what smartphone users will see when they attempt to access your site, even when the redirect option is to a mobile-optimized url:
Faulty redirects occur when a desktop-optimized site has a redirect set up for their smartphone-optimized site, although it may not be directly relevant to the smartphone user’s initial query for information from the desktop-optimized site. These redirects are implemented by professionals who care about the experience of the smartphone user, but can often put a user off and offers the incentive to navigate away from this redirecting site feeling frustrated. These awkward browsing avenues that a user takes in an attempt to access the site with the information that they are looking for also skews Google’s crawling, indexing, and ranking algorithms.
Luckily, making websites responsive across devices isn’t hard with HTML5 as it is supported on most all devices. A few test searches and browsing on your own devices can also help to optimize the viewing experience of your typical smartphone user. If you’re running into trouble with cross-platform optimization or your current website solutions are not optimized for your enterprise, contact Ayoka today!
