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

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Google Ads

Google Ads Text Guidelines Now Rolling Out?

Oct 20, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google

Google AI Mode Tests Text Selection For Follow Up Questions

Oct 20, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google

Google Tests Clickable Paperclip Icon In Search Snippets

Oct 20, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google

Google Search Adds Price Tracking Graph For Each Retailer

Oct 20, 2025 - 7:21 am
Google Ads

Google Local Search Ads In Google Maps Now Supports Sitelinks

Oct 20, 2025 - 7:11 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Search Console Crawl Stats Missing Day Of Data

Oct 20, 2025 - 6:00 am
 
Previous Story: Google: Stop Using Fake Google+ Profiles To Trick Users