There is NO SEO Disadvantage to Using Responsive Design, Only Advantages
Our web designers and web developers here at Outer Banks Media have been using responsive design for a few years now. It was pretty obvious that true responsive design was the best way to go, and the way of the future, at least the foreseeable future. Responsive design is actually quite fun and entertaining. If you think about it, there are only good sides to responsive design, when comparing it to having different urls for different mobile websites. Would you rather have one site to upkeep, or three sites plus to manage?
Matt Cutts said, “You don’t have to worry about there being a down side, related to SEO, when using a responsive design approach for mobile web sites.” Like I previously mentioned, if you think about it, there can’t be a downside because all of your SEO efforts are going into one domain, and not multiple domains. There is no duplication of efforts when it comes to on-page SEO, linking and PageRank.
Here is Matt Cutts answering the responsive website design question:
Google’s Stance of Mobile Design and Mobile SEO Practices
Pierre Far, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, announced clear guidelines and recommendations on mobile SEO by recommending you go with a responsive design when possible. To do it correctly with device-specific HTML, its a bit harder and more work to get it right for SEO purposes. Obviously, developing mobile sites such as these are easy with the bulky, outdated templates that I have seen going around the Outer Banks.
If you would like to learn more about more about responsive design and mobile SEO, give us a call to see how we can help your business transform its online appearance and visibility all at one time.