Google: Responsive Design Doesn't Give You A Ranking Boost

Oct 18, 2013 - 8:29 am 23 by

Responsive Web Design & GoogleGoogle's John Mueller posted in a Stack Exchange thread that responsive design doesn't give you a ranking boost.

Yes, Google does officially recommend responsive as the approach to going mobile. But going responsive, doesn't give you more of a ranking boost that using any of the three accepted approaches to smartphone optimized sites.

Google does demote non-mobile friendly smartphone sites from ranking so well on mobile. And if you mess up with the techniques, they can hurt.

But responsive over different HTML with same URL, doesn't necessarily give you a ranking boost.

Google's John Mueller said:

No. Google currently doesn't differentiate sites like that.

You may see indirect effects (smartphone users liking your responsive site and recommending it to others), but we don't use that as a ranking factor. We are starting to use common configuration errors to adjust the rankings in smartphone search results though.

Forum discussion at Stack Exchange.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 21, 2025

Feb 21, 2025 - 10:00 am
Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Ranking Volatility, In-Content Learning, Google AI With Ads, Local & More

Feb 21, 2025 - 8:01 am
Google Ads

Google Response Search Ads (RSAs) Second Headline In Sitelinks & More

Feb 21, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google

Google Hotel Results Tests Book With Official Site Box

Feb 21, 2025 - 7:41 am
Bing Search

Bing Copilot AI Answers Tabbed Carousel Card

Feb 21, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google Ads

Google Ads To Stop Placing Your Ads On Parked Domains By Default

Feb 21, 2025 - 7:21 am
Previous Story: Google: Stop Using Fake Google+ Profiles To Trick Users