Mobile SEO is dumb

[Alex Snyder]

Last week, during the Vegas conference season, I heard "Mobile SEO" come-up a few times and I recall wincing each time. I do not recall who was saying it, so here's a pass from me to not get called out.

I finally found a decent article that debunks the myth. I'm going to quote the article and leave my personal thoughts out: Mobile SEO is a Myth | Search Engine Journal

Mobile Search refers to search done on a mobile device. That’s it.
Local Search deals with results specific to a location. This usually also includes place pages, maps, and other things that help augment local search.

[h=2]The best Mobile SEO strategy is to not have a mobile SEO strategy.[/h]Apple does not have a mobile strategy and they practically invented the modern mobile device. Apple.com is a great example of how to handle mobile site design. Apple shows the exact same site to mobile and “wired†visitors. It is even on the same URL. Sure, there’s probably a different style sheet involved, but that’s it. The experience is the SAME.
Even better, since it is the exact same URL they only have one site to optimize. All of the SEO work they have done to their wired site also applies to their mobile site – because they’re the same thing! They do not need a mobile search strategy because they do not technically have a mobile site.
It is not just Apple either. Google does the same thing, only the little promos below the search box change.
This is a best case scenario though, and various technical decisions made in the past might not make it applicable to everybody.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

I must have missed this one. Were there really services talking about Mobile SEO?

Maybe they were mistaken for mobile optimization - optimizing our site for mobile devices. The term optimization seems to get loosely thrown around.

Optimizing your your site for local IS mobile search optimization - if that's what you want to call it.

The best thing you can do to improve your mobile optimization is to ensure user agents can determine that your content will render well and load quickly on any mobile phone. As stated in the article, your mobile site should be the "same" site as your wide website. Be careful; having a mobile site that resides on a subdomain or it's own domain could cause issues with duplicate content and have an adverse effect on your SEO strategy.

 

[Chris Cachor]

Alex, are you surprised that Apple.com isn't optimized for iPhone/iPad? I'm not sure where I stand as far as template-ing sites for different devices.

 

[Alex Snyder]

I must have missed this one. Were there really services talking about Mobile SEO?

C'mon now Jeff - Digital Dealer.

 

[Alex Snyder]

Alex, are you surprised that Apple.com isn't optimized for iPhone/iPad?

Not really. They seem to know things that happen in the future