Google Takes A Stab At Mobile-First Indexing (Latest)

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> <br /></div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> <br /></div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> <br /></div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> <br /></div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> Google has just made a major announcement that is likely to shake up the SEO world. According to a post on the Webmaster Central Blog, Google will begin testing mobile-first indexing, a new method to rank pages based on the mobile version of a website first, and falling back to the desktop version when no mobile version is available.</div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> “Although our search index will continue to be a single index of websites and apps, our algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site, to understand structured data, and to show snippets from those pages in our results,” the post read. “Of course, while our index will be built from mobile documents, we’re going to continue to build a great search experience for all users, whether they come from mobile or desktop devices.”</div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> This change – although long expected – is a huge shift for Google and one that is likely to heavily influence the way webmasters work. Yet, this isn’t a sudden switch that will influence your website’s SEO right away.</div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> The change will be implemented over time as Google learns about its users and how they interact with mobile sites. “We’ll continue to carefully experiment over the coming months on a small scale and we’ll ramp up this change when we’re confident that we have a great user experience,” the post clarified.</div> <h2 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 1.6em; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 30px;"> Mobile-First Indexing</h2> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> The sea change comes as a result of the increased use of mobile devices and searches that take place on smartphones and tablets. Google claims that more users are searching on mobile than on desktops, but the current indexing methods looks at desktop versions of websites in order to determine ranking.</div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> That’s why Google is moving towards a model that more accurately represents the behavior of its users. Mobile-first indexing simply means that Google will look at the mobile version of a site first, if it is available, in order to determine ranking. The idea is that the results will be more fitting to Google’s user base and help users more easily find the information they are seeking.</div> <h2 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 1.6em; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 30px;"> The SEO Impact</h2> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> So what does this mean for webmasters and how will it affect their sites’ listing on the rankings page? The change means that rankings will eventually be the same, regardless of whether you are using desktop or mobile, and the existence of a mobile-friendly site will have an influence on the rankings results.</div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> Google understands that mobile-focused indexing will have a drastic impact on webmasters, SEO experts, and the work they do. That’s why they outlined some things to keep in mind and some recommendations regarding the indexing shift.</div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> If you currently run a responsive website or a dynamic serving website, then there is nothing special you need to do to prepare your website for the indexing change. Both of these configurations already serve content that is formatted appropriately for different devices, meaning they already serve mobile-friendly and desktop versions of their webpages.</div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> If your website configuration varies depending on the device and platform in use, then there are some changes you will need to make. Google listed the following important steps for those with websites that differ between mobile and desktop in their post:</div> <ul style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;"> <li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 5px;">Make sure to serve structured markup for both the desktop and mobile version.</li> <li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 5px;">Sites can verify the equivalence of their structured markup across desktop and mobile by typing the URLs of both versions into the Structured Data Testing Tool and comparing the output.</li> <li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 5px;">When adding structured data to a mobile site, avoid adding large amounts of markup that isn’t relevant to the specific information content of each document.</li> <li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 5px;">Use the robots.txt testing tool to verify that your mobile version is accessible to Googlebot.</li> <li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 5px;">Sites do not have to make changes to their canonical links; we’ll continue to use these links as guides to serve the appropriate results to a user searching on desktop or mobile.</li> <li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 5px;">If you are a site owner who has only verified their desktop site in Search Console, please add and verify your mobile version.</li> </ul> <h2 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 1.6em; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 30px;"> Do I Need a Mobile Site?</h2> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> If you don’t yet have a mobile site, or have never thought about building one, don’t fret. The indexing changes don’t mean you have to rush to build a mobile site in order to be indexed by Google.</div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> “If you only have a desktop site, we’ll continue to index your desktop site just fine,” the post asserted, “even if we’re using a mobile user agent to view your site.” This means that Google will continue indexing your site via your desktop version and you won’t be penalized or see any negative SEO results for not having a mobile site.</div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> If you are in the process of building a new website or considering doing so, it is highly recommended to take the time to create a mobile version. There are definitely unseen benefits to having a mobile site and mobile-first indexing will likely benefit your website in the future.</div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> That being said, it is definitely best not to force the mobile version issue. “If you are building a mobile version of your site, keep in mind that a functional desktop-oriented site can be better than a broken or incomplete mobile version of the site,” Google said. “It’s better for you to build up your mobile site and launch it when ready.”</div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 12px;"> Overall, this is a big change for Google and one that will heavily influence all of the decisions behind website architecture across the world. The effect has yet to be seen, but mobile-first indexing will likely mark a turning point in Google indexing history and one that will have serious SEO consequences moving forward.</div> </div>

TECHNICAL NEWS Google Takes A Stab At Mobile-First Indexing (Latest)

Google has just made a major announcement that is likely to shake up the SEO world. According to a post on the Webmaster Central Blog, Google will begin testing mobile-first indexing, a new method to rank pages based on the mobile version of a websi…

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Google adds new testing, analytics features to its Firebase backend as a service

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div class="post-meta" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: "Droid Sans", Helvetica, Arial, Lucida, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 6px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"> by <a href="http://siliconangle.com/blog/author/chi22/" rel="author" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #666666; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Posts by Maria Deutscher">Maria Deutscher</a> | Nov 7, 2016 | <span class="comments-number" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://siliconangle.com/blog/2016/11/07/google-adds-new-testing-analytics-features-to-its-firebase-backend-as-a-service/#respond" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #666666; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">0 comments</a></span></div> <img alt="Google adds new testing, analytics features to its Firebase backend as a service" height="675" src="http://siliconangle.com/files/2016/11/firebase.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: "Droid Sans", Helvetica, Arial, Lucida, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="1080" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Droid Sans", Helvetica, Arial, Lucida, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span><br /> <div class="entry-content" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: "Droid Sans", Helvetica, Arial, Lucida, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 30px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <div data-incom="P0" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; line-height: 1.7em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;"> Building and testing mobile applications could soon become a much more streamlined experience for developers who rely on Google Inc.’s cloud-based Firebase toolkit.</div> <div data-incom="P1" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; line-height: 1.7em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;"> At an event in Berlin today, the search giant introduced a new iteration of the managed backend that promises to speed up several key parts of the software lifecycle, starting with bug removal. The suite’s Test Lab service now makes it possible to check for application runtime issues on 11 additional Android devices and has been included in the free Spark subscription tier.</div> <div data-incom="P2" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; line-height: 1.7em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;"> According to a blog post from Firebase product manager Francis Ma, developers who use the latter plan can now perform up to 15 test runs per day at no charge. This should be more than enough for small projects that don’t require the paid version of the toolkit.</div> <div data-incom="P3" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; line-height: 1.7em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;"> The updated Test Lab is joined by Crash Reporting, a troubleshooting service that was first unveiled in May and is finally coming out of beta as part of today’s rollout. Google has added a diagnostics capability to the tool on occasion of the launch that can use data from Firebase Analytics to display what happened in the run-up to a malfunction. A company that offers a mobile shopping app, for instance, could use the feature to see what product pages a user viewed before their client crashed.</div> <div data-incom="P4" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; line-height: 1.7em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; vertical-align: baseline;"> Google’s Ma wrote that the enhancement thus spares developers the hassle of writing custom code to pull data from Firebase Analytics into their troubleshooting workflows. And rolling out targeted updates now takes less effort, too, thanks to expanded integration between the service and Firebase Remote Config. The addition provides the ability to narrow down the users who receive a change based on specific attributes such as their country, age and gender. It should be particularly useful for running A/B tests to see how a particular audience reacts to different variations of the same feature.</div> <div data-incom="P5" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; line-height: 1.7em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Developers can learn about the new enhancements and Firebase as a whole through a new Udacity course that Google has launched alongside the update. It’s described as a two-day, instructor-led program geared towards both Android and iOS programmers. More details are available in the FireBase portal.</div> </div> </div>

TECHNICAL NEWS Google adds new testing, analytics features to its Firebase backend as a service

by Maria Deutscher | Nov 7, 2016 | 0 comments Building and testing mobile applications could soon become a much more streamlined experience for developers who rely on Google Inc.’s cloud-based Firebase toolkit. At an event in Berlin today, the searc…

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Xiaomi Anti-Pollution Air Mask With PM2.5 Rechargeable Air Filter Launched

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <img alt="Xiaomi Anti-Pollution Air Mask With PM2.5 Rechargeable Air Filter Launched" class="" src="https://i.gadgets360cdn.com/large/Xiaomi_Mask_1478590129957.jpeg?output-quality=80&output-format=jpg" style="background-color: white; border: none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e433e; display: block; font-family: "Open Sans", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; max-width: 100%; min-height: 200px; width: 770px;" title="Xiaomi Anti-Pollution Air Mask With PM2.5 Rechargeable Air Filter Launched" /><br /> <br /> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e433e; font-family: "Open Sans", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 10px; width: 770px;"> After launching the Mi Air Purifier Pro earlier this month, Xiaomi has now launched an anti-pollution mask with built-in air-filter. Calling it the Cloth Pear Fresh Air Mask, this is the company's latest crowdfunding effort, and is being sold on the Mi crowdfunding page for CNY 89 (roughly Rs. 900).</div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e433e; font-family: "Open Sans", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 10px; width: 770px;"> The mask is made of high-fibre textile, and is hand woven to offer a three-dimensional structure. GizmoChina reports that the anti-pollution mask is light and portable, weighing about 50.5 grams. It is offered in a Grey colour option, with a delicate air filter attached to one side.</div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e433e; font-family: "Open Sans", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 10px; width: 770px;"> (<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Also see: </strong>The Best Air Pollution Masks You Can Buy Right Now in India)</div> <span style="background-color: white; color: #3e433e; font-family: "Open Sans", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The air filter can be detached from the mask, and the housing inside is made of high-quality polyester fabric. To make it lightweight, there's a home-grown ultra-thin fan and a removable cartridge for ease in future replacement. The fan has three speed level controls, and a power on/off button to save battery.</span><br /> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e433e; font-family: "Open Sans", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 10px; width: 770px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e433e; font-family: "Open Sans", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 10px; width: 770px;"> The air filter is rechargeable, and comes with polymer lithium-ion battery that takes about 3-4 hours to fully charge. The filter is apparently able to achieve PM2.5 filtration efficiency of up to 99 percent. This is a first for Xiaomi, as the company has only indulged in making air purifiers before this. The company alongside the Mi Air Purifier Pro also launched the Mi PM2.5 Detector.</div> <div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3e433e; font-family: "Open Sans", HelveticaNeue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-top: 10px; width: 770px;"> As for now, this is only available via the crowdfunding site in China, but we sincerely hope that it arrives in India. The alarming post-Diwali pollution levels in North India will have many customers flocking in to buy this Cloth Pear Fresh Air Mask from Xiaomi.</div> </div>

TECHNICAL NEWS Xiaomi Anti-Pollution Air Mask With PM2.5 Rechargeable Air Filter Launched

After launching the Mi Air Purifier Pro earlier this month, Xiaomi has now launched an anti-pollution mask with built-in air-filter. Calling it the Cloth Pear Fresh Air Mask, this is the company's latest crowdfunding effort, and is being sold on the…

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