Rudy Rupak continues his analysis of the effect of a responsive design in comparison to adaptive and mdot when it comes to SEO ranking.

1. Is Responsive Web
Design an SEO Ranking
Factor for Google?
by Rudy Rupak on Mobile SEO

2. Mobile Designs
• Last month we went over the 3 different types of
mobile designs: Responsive, Adaptive and mDot
• We know Google prefers Responsive web design,
but enough to rank it higher than other
configurations?

3. Survey
• A survey conducted by moz.com in 2015 found
that 150 marketing professionals specializing in
SEO reported the 1st most influential ranking factor
was Unique Content and the 2nd was Use of
Responsive Design and/or Mobile Optimization
• It was a correlation survey… still not a study.

4. Study
• v9seo.com performed a Case Study
• They saw a client’s one-page mDot site benefit from
transitioning to a fully responsive configuration
• Traffic increased and so did organic ranking
• Looks at causation instead of correlation
• What if the increase in rankings was caused by the traffic
increase?

5. Study 2
• PM Digital studied about 40 clients’ organic
rankings and traffic both before and after
Mobilegeddon and did not find significant gains or
losses when comparing responsive to adaptive to
mDot designs
• Do we just need a better study?

6. What We Do Know
• “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.”
- Google’s John Mueller, October 2013
• “Mobile-responsive sites are ‘easier for Google,’
according to Gary Illyes, but there is not difference in
how responsive and m. sites are treated - meaning, there
is no ranking advantage to having a responsive site. It
simply reduces the chances of errors with setups that
are common with m. sites.”
- Google’s Gary Illyes, March 2015

7. In conclusion
If these statements still apply, we can conclude with
another statement:
“If you have a non-mobile friendly website, a
responsive design website will certainly suck
less. But that’s it. Suck less.”
- Avinash Kaushik, May 2014