I’ve done this site for friend, quickly adapting a non-adaptive site. There was little budget for a complete redesign, and it’s a case of ‘I wouldn’t have started from here’, but there we are!
OK, I’ve got a report from Google Webmaster Tools moaning about the following issues:
Content not sized to viewport
Touch elements too close
Small font size
Fixed width viewport
Flash usage
The Flash usage and small font size I can deal with — the client has placed Flash content in there, and I disagree with Google on the font size but can comply.
The rest… have they tried resizing the pages? It all seems to work for me, so it looks like a case of a technical bot running an algorithm of expectations and not actually caring about the real life results as viewed. Or am I wrong? I’m perfectly willing to be wrong if it can be pointed out why, but Google has no specific detail here.
Which touch elements are too close, for example?
Slightly perplexed!
http://www.graham-graham-beck.co.uk
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Aha…
If you employ a robots.txt file that denies the gppglebot crawler access to any directories that contain resources such as CSS, js, images etc, then the crawler fails your site as not mobile friendly. Remove them from the robots.txt disallow list and voila!
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can you explain this more please? kinda new with freeway and like ian my website is not mobile friendly and it seems to be telling me that
“Your page specifies a fixed-width desktop viewport. Use a responsive viewport to allow your page to render properly on all devices.
Configuring a viewport specifying width=device-width instead of width=960 will allow your page to adapt for devices of various widths. This may require additional work to adapt your styling for smaller screens.”
I am seriously getting fed up of google… i swear, if they tell us to jump off a bridge we will have to!!
but i really really do not want to redo my website is there a work around?
THANKS!
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but i really really do not want to redo my website is there a work around?
No! Simple answer.
David
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crap:-((( not the answer i was looking for… LOL
so how does one create a redirect to a mobile site?
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If you are going to go to the trouble of building a mobile site then you would be as well to use the responsive features built into FW7 to build a truly responsive site. Then only 1 site to maintain.
It will be about the same amount of work.
D
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tell me more about the responsive features?
i prefer only one site… can use my curent one to modify?
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tell me more about the responsive features?
It has all been discussed here before and in the FW documentation. It would take me too long.
i prefer only one site… can use my curent one to modify?
By all means start with your existing site. Make a copy of the current FW doc and rename it. Change the upload path to yoursite.com/newsite and make sure that you create a new folder (on your Mac) which you will select to publish into.
Now create a new Master page which will be the base for your construction.
In your new (copy)FW doc start to copy/paste content inline into and onto your new Master(s) and child pages.
Upload and test (which will not affect your existing site) until you are happy - then you can change the upload path (dropping the /newsite bit) to overwrite the existing site. But only when you are happy that everything is working properly.
That is a simplified version but should give you the gist of the process.
D
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Alternatively you take what Google says with a pinch of salt and leave it as it is.
D
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i prefer that plan! HAHAHA
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Sorry Stephanie — on posting this I was assuming that a site would already be mobile friendly — which I knew mine was, hence the ahem, ‘displeasure’ at Google. I swore several times!
It took some working out, but eventually found that certain resources were not being seen by the Google mobile check robot that tests for mobile friendliness.
I then realised I’d stopped the indexing of these resource directories because I saw no point in them being indexed for search engine purposes. Google have changed things I reckon, so that the mobile friendly checker robot also gets blocked.
Unblock, and suddenly Google is happy. Unlike myself.
I’m now wondering about using any blocking at all via robots.txt files… this is a text file that tells any automatic robot checking your site, whether it is allowed to do so or not, and which directories are allowed. They can ignore the file if they want to, but reputable ones usually don’t.
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well according to google… my site isn’t… sucks but there we have it… i can chose to ignore which i assume will not benefit my business… i am now on the hunt for a freeway template for mobile which i can use but cannot seem to locate anything.
you are honestly talking chinese right now for me:((( damn wish there was a crash course on understanding google and how to unlock all their dirty secrets:-)
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ian, i took a look at your website on my iPhone… questions
- was this site done using freeway?
- how did you get he menu looking like that for an iphone?3
- i am using mal’s ecommerce for my main website and i see you are using ecwid… is this easy to incorporate?
-
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Hi Stephanie — it was done using FW7 plus a modular framework called Backdraft 2.0:
http://getbackdraft.com
Backdraft does most of the heavy lifting to enable the site to be mobile friendly, and if you stick reasonably close to the modules as they, for a beginner they may be usable without too much trouble. I’ve found several ways to bend them to my will, but this takes some careful monitoring of how things progress as the viewing device changes from desktop, to tablet to phone. Stick to the defaults, changing things like fonts and colours for example, and it should be OK.
Caleb, the person behind Backdraft, is fantastic at responding to queries and problems by the way. Another example site I’m working on, using Backdraft 2.0:
http://www.ianhalstead.com/scottishgold/
Ecwid is pretty straightforward — at worst it involves copying some code and pasting it into a Freeway ‘markup item’ which is positioned on your page. On viewing the site online, the shop appears where the markup item is placed.
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