How does a Responsive Site kill SEO?

[ExploreConsulting]

How does a Responsive Site poentially kill SEO?

I've seen a few feeds on twitter how a website took a rankings dive after implementing a Responsive theme; yet, it's not clear to me what is actually going on within a Responsive site that would cause the SEO rank to tank?  I can only speculate that it introduces a bunch of 404 errors, or that it changes all of the URLs into gibberish, so you loose all of the links coming into your website if not 301'ed?

Can someone clarify, what are the actual mechanical issues on a Responsive website that becomes a concern to SEO?  Thanks.

[Thos003]

The re-ordering of content on a page could give the page different emphasis. You would have to take a look at the page as a Google bot, to determine if the responsive theme displays the content differently. This could even go as far as throwing up links that should be navigational as content. What does or doesn't fall between a

and

makes a difference.

For the most part, I wouldn't expect a properly designed responsive site to change your SEO.

[djlaidler]

Hi Steve,

I think you should rephrase the question...

How can a responsive design harm SEO?

Typically a responsive design is driven by either USER AGENT or screen size... Both of these, if implemented correctly will not affect the way the Google Bot crawls the site. I would doubt there will be issues with 404's as the URL will be the same regardless of the device.

I would suggest it is poor implementation of the design.

Hope this helps!

Dan

[RobertFisher]

Steve

First, I stumbled onto this discussion and my mouth fell open as I gurgled out ... What the....

So, I then read the good answers from Thomas and Daniel and felt a twinge of relief. Here is what I suggest when you hear something like that: First ask the question It was your site that fell in rankings or someone elses? If they say someone elses, ask if they personally saw the rankings drop post implementation of the new design. If theirs, ask the same pointed questions if you were trying to help someone determine what the problem is. 
Now, once you ascertain (and I am willing to bet over 90% fall into this group) that they never personally saw the data, you have answer one: Somebody said that somebody said. OK, not great SEO work. But, if they say it is theirs or they got to dig through, ask this How did it affect the rankings and how did you determine that was the cause? Now you are getting into some serious SEO detective mojo! That's where we find the real answers.

Great question Steve!!

Good job Thomas and Daniel, Thanks for keeping the world clean!

Robert

PS - we build a lot of sites and 80% plus are responsive. We have see NO drop in rankings that could be attributable to a responsive design. BTW our site and several of our large firm owned sites are fully responsive and rocking cool. They are fine.

[retailgeek]

Hi Steve,

At this point I wouldn't say responsive design is fundamentally better or worse than other options from an SEO perspective.  But there are a number of SEO pitfalls you'd want to avoid when moving from some other structure, to a responsive design.

First a Quick Set of Definitions:

"Responsive Design" means different things to different people.  If you ask 5 people to define it, you'll get 8 different definitions.

Most people (including Google and the W3C) would say that "responsive design" is primarily using media queries and proportional layouts to adapt a webpage to different viewport widths on the client.

Detecting UserAgents is actually a server side technique that would commonly be used for an alternative approach to responsive design, that google calls "Dynamic Design".

Many people mistakenly call both Serve Side Adaption and Client Side Adaption "Responsive Design" when in fact there are important distinctions for SEO.

Changes in URLS can hurt SEO

In either case, if you're moving from having separate URL's for your desktop (www.mysite.com) and mobile (m.mysite.com) to a new design based on responsive or dynamic design, then you are going to be changing some URL's in the process.  Any time you change your URL's you run the risk of hurting your SEO.  The best practice is to 301 redirect all the m.mysite.com pages to their new www.mysite.com responsive design equivalents   If you happen to be changing the main desktop URL's at the same time, it's even more important that you use 301's to preserve the equity in your old URLs.

Responsive vs. Dynamic

Google loves client side responsive design (it's the easiest/cheapest for Google to crawl), so it's actually their first choice, and you don't have to do anything special for responsive design SEO.

If however, you are doing "Dynamic Design" such as detecting user agents on the server to adapt pages for different devices, then you need to tell Google that the page will look different for different user agents.  This is done using the Vary HTTP  header.

Content Differences

Responsive Design means that you basically have the same content on your desktop and mobile version of your site.  That can mean that you don't have keywords which are popular on mobile devices, such as "download mobile app" which can obviously hurt SEO for those keywords.  Having a dynamic site (with different content for mobile and desktop) or even having separate URL's for mobile and desktop can sometimes give you a better chance to optimize your keywords for mobile searches.

Speed

Most Responsive Designs are slower than Dynamic designs or separate URLs.  It doesn't have to be that way, as their are work-arounds for Responsive Design speed challenges.  But fundamentally, responsive design means downloading more variations and code to the client, than a well behaved dynamic site, which means it's usually slower.  Too often, lazy designers use the same images for all devices on a responsive design page, and then it's quite a bit slower.

Pagespeed is an SEO ranking factor so, it can hurt your SEO.  If you choose Responsive Design, make sure you are only downloading properly optimized images for each device, and that you have highly optimized the pageload of your responsive design.  Your users and your search engines will thank you for having fast pages.

Conclusion

Responsive Design doesn't have to be bad for SEO, and in many cases it is better for SEO than other options.   The search engines have given us good options to have optimal SEO with any of the three major techniques for addressing device diversity, so I would't let SEO drive my architecture decision.

I'd choose separate URLs, Dynamic Server Adaption, Responsive Design Client Adaption, or mixes of the last two (Responsive Design with Server Side Components  or RESS) based on my user base, the tasks my users are going to want to complete on each device, and my development resources, rather than any concerns over SEO.

All the best.

-Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg

[RobertFisher]

Hello Jason,

This is one of the best (ok, IMO the best explanation of responsive design I have seen to date) especially laying out the difference between server side - dynamic design - and responsive. The thought you placed into this whole answer to provide one that is concise and cogent is excellent. 
I like the point up about the lazy designer and page speed as something to be aware of. 
Typically, as an agency, we are not often dealing with a client bringing mobile and desktop forward. It is more likely we will be dealing with someone whose site has lost appeal, power, relevance, etc. and we typically build responsive for all. So the thoughts around url changes are helpful as well.

Thank You,

Robert