Comments on: Q: What URL Should I Use For My Mobile Website? A: Responsive Design

By: Ruud Hein

Ruud Hein — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:37:05 +0000

Search engines don’t know what they want yet; Bing is the first to come out in favor of the one URL option. But Google has long made a difference between mobile content (WAP-ish kind of stuff) and smart phone type of content which they do *not* consider mobile content.

A company that has already invested in a mobile site shouldn’t have to revert its decision or investment.

By: Ruud Hein

Ruud Hein — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:33:36 +0000

In reply to jeff loquist.

And that’s the beauty of doing things The Right Way, isn’t it Jeff? If you build your site responsibly then it will work everywhere the right way 🙂 I keep hearing Holmes in my head: make it right the first time

By: Ruud Hein

Ruud Hein — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:28:22 +0000

In reply to Henry Sim.

Perhaps with responsive web design that too will change 🙂 Thanks for the comment Henry!

By: Henry Sim

Henry Sim — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:59:52 +0000

I love that – one size fits all. One URL should be good enough for all versions of website. This also make it easier for web designer and developers. By default, we don’t include mobile ready website and we have cases of clients coming back to us to request for that. It’s a different price quote.

By: jeff loquist

jeff loquist — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 21:53:42 +0000

We (somewhat) recently spent a loooonggg time discussing the idea of a “mobile friendly” site when the traffic to our sites from mobile devices started hitting double digits (currently 17% with 14% of revenues coming from mobile). And then after speaking with our Google reps we are estimating 25% by the end of the year. Needless to say this got the wheels turning.

Upon further digging, though it turns out 80% of that traffic is coming from Apple products and 98% from tablets & smart phones (which are site works amazingly well from).

I have a feeling these are pretty common numbers.

This is a a long, drawn out way to say my feeling is it is more important to worry about page load times and usability than building out a “mobile” site as most sites out there will work fine with only a few (if any) alterations.

By: Mike Wilton

Mike Wilton — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:46:30 +0000

Do you think that sites that adopted the mobile site structures of the past that use a mobile subfolder or subdomain with mobile specific content will be impacted by the search engine’s desire to have one URL for all content? I think responsive is the way to go, but with so many sites using subfolders or domains for mobile content I imagine it’s going to cost companies a ton of time and money to adopt to responsive web design and make sure sites work on various devices.

By: Ruud Hein

Ruud Hein — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:46:22 +0000

In reply to Cory Howell.

Thanks for the feedback, Cory

By: Ruud Hein

Ruud Hein — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:51:33 +0000

In reply to Lyena Solomon.

Ah, good stat. Into Evernote with it. Love stats 🙂 Thanks Lyena!

By: Ruud Hein

Ruud Hein — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:50:54 +0000

In reply to Jared.

I agree, Jared; the broken web just wouldn’t work 🙂

By: Jared

Jared — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:16:48 +0000

“Instead of spreading your link love and efforts over multiple URL’s, use one and the same URL to deliver to all devices”

Exactly. This is great advice for anyone starting a website that has long term goals in mind. If you optimize for mobile in the beginning, you can save yourself a headache later.