Google is telling us that because the world is now using microscopic sized screens, we must now incorporate responsive pages on our web sites.or suffer the consequences of being banished to web oblivion. I have gathered several years of visitor analytics for my web site. This includes the OS, device type, and browser type. As of the end of May this year, the gathered data indicates that most visitors are using desktops to visit my site. If my site is typical of many limited audience/interest sites then there is absolutely no reason that I should migrate to responsive technology given that the ratio of desktop to mobile device users is about 100:1. Somebody is talking gobshite.
Recently, I was trying to access a site on my phone. It was impossible to navigate. It was several days before I returned from my desktop. I went back several times from my desktop, because I had to. Statistics will tell that I went to the site about 10 times more often from my desktop, and that I stayed a lot longer on the site using my desktop. While this is true, it is only a portion of the story, and one that misleads the reader.
Not saying it is the case with your site, but that it is one reason for Google’s position on the topic.
While its a bit annoying for us Xojo users that they down rank sites that don’t use it. I get what they’re trying to do. Plus Xojo Web Apps aren’t normally indexed by google without some additional work anyways.
For what its worth, I’ve been adding Responsive Design to my latest Xojo WebApp and its working awesome. It feels 100x better than the built in handling Xojo does.
http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_rwd_mediaqueries.asp
Adding Jquery to your app makes this all a lot easier to manage.
I have plans to release my CSS, javascript, Jquery, and JqueryUI Xojo libraries at some point too which makes coding these customizations a breeze:
textfield1.jquery.css("width","50%").css("left","50%").script.run[quote=193000:@Brock Nash]While its a bit annoying for us Xojo users that they down rank sites that don’t use it. I get what they’re trying to do. Plus Xojo Web Apps aren’t normally indexed by google without some additional work anyways.
For what its worth, I’ve been adding Responsive Design to my latest Xojo WebApp and its working awesome. It feels 100x better than the built in handling Xojo does.
http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_rwd_mediaqueries.asp
Adding Jquery to your app makes this all a lot easier to manage.
I have plans to release my CSS, javascript, Jquery, and JqueryUI Xojo libraries at some point too which makes coding these customizations a breeze:[/quote]
I made this comment in another post: So you could post some responsive HTML based pages and then have a web app hanging off it to get around googles new ruling???
While you might be able to trick google that way, I would recommend instead that you just make your WebApp use responsive design. It’s not overly difficult to do and it makes the app web a lot friendlier and more robust.
…I’ve got bad eyes, i read that as taking …
When I started designing web sites back in 1996 the common resolution was 800x600 and people accessed pages with dialup 56K modems. There was all sorts of limitations. Then people increasingly benefited from broadband and computers enjoyed larger and larger screens. I had to redesign my sites to match. Then JavaScript and other gizmos enabled lots of things not possible before. Yet again redesign. Today, like it or not, an increasing number of people use their phones and tablets to surf the web. Most of my sites are about fonts, which is not exactly mobile concern. Yet, logs indicate people visit with such devices.
Who am I to say what they should use to visit ? As long as they gaze at my glasswindow, I got a chance to sell.
Now the Google thing. Half of my sites will need redesign to comply with the new requirement. I got a choice : not do it, and face drastically lower traffic (50% less or so), or make an effort. That is called evolution. I don’t have to like it more than Google does. I believe they are probably even more into a predicament than I am. How are they going to display their pesky adds when screen real estate is so scarce ? Am sure they already lost some clicks. Customer is king. Customer uses an iPhone 6, a Samsung Note or something like that. Customer does not give a damn about technicalities. Customer taps away if he does not find what he wants within two seconds. Catch him before he runs.
That would make a terrific article if you could share the basics applied to Xojo Web :).
I have a Web site used for research by an incredibly small percentage of the world’s population (typical visits: half a dozen a day not counting illegal attempts) with a stunningly boring design developed years ago with PCs in mind. I have tried using it from my wife’s smartphone and from her tablet, and it is usable - just - without having to alter it in any way. According to the Webalyzer stats, the overwhelming majority of users use Firefox on a PC, with no sign so far of smartphones, yet. (If you’re really interested in pipe organs, do please take a look at www.intorg.org, otherwise don’t bother. :))
I second that 
I have from my systems back to 1998. Mobile was always the second class citizen and our usage stats showed it. 1-2% out of 5000 corporate users. I decided as an experiment to make the top 5 pages mobile aware and mobile usage jumped to 23% in a month.
Because of the profile of my users this surprised me. By the end of the year, all pages that can be reasonably made to work in a responsive design will be changed to be so.
You probably have a point there, but the word ‘Smack’ wasn’t in my original conversation title. Its funny how in this day and age using a slang word for heroin is deemed more acceptable than the slang word for excrement. I was positive that the conversation parser was going to replace the word sh!t with @#$&
it stongly depends on your audience.
My main website jakobssystems.net for Software Development addresses companies and other businesses and is accessed by 82% desktops (Win: 62%, Macs: 20%) and just 20% mobile Devices (iOS:15%, Android+Rest: 5%).
When I compare these numbers with my second area of interest (I am Flight Instructor: www.ul-fluglehrer.de) with a complete different audience group (End Users), the numbers are quite different: 40% iOS, just 25% Windows Desktops, 20% Android, and Mac around 10%.
The conclusion:
The number of mobile devices is increasing while the classic desktop is in decline. That’s a fact.
But it strongly depends on your audience/ target group.
[quote=193166:@Tomas Jakobs]it stongly depends on your audience.
My main website jakobssystems.net for Software Development addresses companies and other businesses and is accessed by 82% desktops (Win: 62%, Macs: 20%) and just 20% mobile Devices (iOS:15%, Android+Rest: 5%).
When I compare these numbers with my second area of interest (I am Flight Instructor: www.ul-fluglehrer.de ) with a complete different audience group (End Users), the numbers are quite different: 40% iOS, just 25% Windows Desktops, 20% Android, and Mac around 10%.
The conclusion:
The number of mobile devices is increasing while the classic desktop is in decline. That’s a fact.
But it strongly depends on your audience/ target group.[/quote]
It looks like we target roughly the same web demographic. I sell flight simulation equipment www.simquip.com, while you teach people how to use that equipment. I wouldn’t argue the fact that desktop use is in decline, I would argue the assertion that “you need to make your site responsive now because most visitors are using mobile devices”. As Michel Bujardet said “Customer is king”.I can’t deny this, but having Google dictate how my site should respond to users is agitating and offensive. Why not let me suffer the consequences of bad site design by my own hand. I currently have a 5% click out which means that the tsunami of visitors on my site using their tiny screens still find the site quite usable. What is google going to say when apple releases the 36" ipad “slab”. (Due for release 2085).
For whatever reason, Google succeeded presenting itself as a public service. Because of that, we expect from it to be neutral, which means it should not influence the results. Unfortunately, this is just crafty spin on Google part. It is not a public service, it is a commercial company selling advertisement, who keeps its search algorithm top secret in order to tune it to the best of its corporate interest. It has always manipulated results, even more so today with its own copycat sites it puts in front of its own advertiser’s. Face it : Google is not the good doer it purports to be.
Isn’t their motto “don’t be evil” however I would suggest they change it to “don’t be F@#k&*g annoying”. Alta vista never told me how to format web sites.
Their motto is just as trustworthy as a crook saying “honest”. Pity is Altavista forgot to make money, besides getting increasingly irrelevant, with such things as “17568 results”. Google brought fast and shortlist result, and guised itself as a philanthropist. Everybody believed its lies. Fooled you
Google is just another big company preoccupied only with making as much money as possible. It is their rules or the freeway for most everybody who wants to loiter on their doorstep. Tough luck. Business is business. We are just a couple of sardines in the ocean of billions Google swims in like Uncle Scrooge does in his vault.
I would think that what they are saying may be relevant for “News” and “How To” related sites, basically information sites that people can visit on the go on a mobile device. But to actually look and download apps that we develop then unless you are developing mobile apps, it wouldn’t really make much sense to do it on mobile.
I spend 89% of my on-line time on a desktop computer, my daughter and her friends spend 87% on the phone.
They are a lot of people I can’t ignore, you guys too. 
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/configurations/responsive-design
Google didn’t make this move yesterday, and did not make it for the worst but for the better. The world needs a little push.
Self proclaimed whatever is always suspicious. Like country names that include “Democratic” …
While Google is definitely not acting purely on the basis of the greater good, I cannot blame them either on this soecific topic.
An admittedly subjective point of view.
For better or worse, Google is here, and here to stay, and unavoidable. In Europe, 90% of web searches are done on Google. Worldwide, it is close to 70% http://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx?qprid=4&qpcustomd=0
The question is not if we like it, the question is, how are we going to be displayed on Google searches so we can get the business our web sites deserve. Like the phone book in the past for brick and mortar shops.
Fact is computing is no longer desktop or laptop computers. Actually less and less by the year. One does not have to like it, but one has to dress up for the part.