Forum + Google's new mobile algorithm

[BigMike]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to share why our forum currently looks different on your hand-held device. Last month Google rolled out a new algorithm that affects a website's search ranking when viewed from a mobile device. This is being done to encourage sites to update to newer mobile standards.

Please see this link for more information: http://blog.seoprofiler.com/2015/03/official-information-googles-mobile-algorithm/

The next generation of our forum software will be 100% mobile friendly with an all new theme back-end. Unfortunately it is not ready for a production site yet (see this thread for information on the latest beta version).

Websites can be tested as "mobile friendly" by using this script: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ Our current theme is based on a four-year old layout and as you can imagine is not mobile-friendly. Google's test script listed more than half a dozen issues that make it not mobile friendly.

An official but temporary fix has been offered by SMF that complies with Google's new standard. Therefore, to preserve our high search ranking on Google, we have installed this official fix. Now when we run a test with Google, our forum passes with flying colors! Keep in mind that this only affects our forum when viewed from a mobile device. The desktop view is entirely intact.

We are eagerly awaiting the new SMF v2.1 which is guaranteed to have a smoother and faster mobile browsing experience. Until then, thank you for accepting our changes when viewed on your mobile device. As a temporary solution for a better mobile reading experience, we recommend viewing our forum through the Tapatalk app (see this thread for more details).

If you have any serious issues with the new mobile layout then please let me know and I'll see about resolving it.

Regards,
BigMike

[BigMike]

Update: I fixed a few layout bugs. There are still a few more, such as the new menu icons not being correct. I will have to get those fixed tomorrow.

Again, keep in mind the theme is only different when viewed from a mobile device.

Thanks
BigMike

[liveoak]

I

[BigMike]

I hope the desktop site remains as it is now. I like your forum for theses key reasons. No ads. Legible fonts and background (white). No ads. Well organized layout. No ads. No tricky redirects. Easy to use and navigate. I cant even go on ih8mud anymore after they "upgraded",it is so annoying.
I prefer your non mobile site(desktop) to tapatalk and would like to see a mobile app that mimics the desktop forum but with larger fonts and less lines per page to be more legible on my phone.

Thank you for the feedback. For sure we will never have ads, not part of our model for the forum. The only thing we've done that were like ads is that we have from time to time displayed banners for our own products and I believe we used to show them at the bottom of every page. We might bring this back at some point, but no current plans. There were basic banners of our own products that linked to our Store website.

I also greatly prefer a light background. I've heard people say black with white text is easier on the eyes but I really don't like it. I prefer to dim my monitor or phone instead. Sure this is just my own preference, but look at Google and Facebook... Both use light backgrounds for a reason

I also prefer to view a full version of a site on my mobile device, and for this reason I use a user agent flipswitch on my jailbroken iPhone to trick websites into believing I'm on a desktop PC. I realize not everyone can or is doing this, so I've also been thinking about offering a secondary theme that you can select from your profile if you prefer to keep the old -- "unfriendly" -- layout. The only requirement we have is that the "default" theme for guests is "friendly" for Google's page rank system. Other than that registered members could run any theme they wanted through their profile -- if we offered them. There is an additional caveat which is if we offer additional themes, then we'd have to maintain them also (routine browser compatibility and usability adjustments) which adds to our work load. (ie. It's easiest to only maintain one theme, but we do see the merit in offering options!)

While I have not seen the new version of our forum software yet, they have modernized the main theme which is still being called "Curves", the same theme ours is based off of. So the fact it has the same name is a big clue that the basic layout and functionality will be the same. It is certainly going to require a major template re-write on my part because when I ported our Store website theme to our forum here many moons ago, my CSS skills were not nearly as good as they are today (there are still layout bugs here that I'm just too lazy to fix). So when the new forum software comes out I plan to do a fresh re-write of porting our Store theme here. I'm very eager and excited for this! It should be a much faster, smoother, and friendly forum to visit!

As for fonts, we can make those changes now. I can alter the font size when viewed from a mobile device. When you talk about lines per page, are you referring to the number of member replies per page (which is currently set at 30 replies per page) ?

Regards,
BigMike

[liveoak]

W

[BigMike]

oh yeah, no more evil turtles 

You'll have to talk to our Turtle Breeder about that one

[helipilot77]

Thanks for the update BigMike. I was wondering what was going on. I am getting used to it as I hate tapatalk. Thank you for fixing the menu buttons. It was making it hard to navigate.
X2 on no more evil turtles.   

[BigMike]

Have found a few more issues including the statistics page being blank. Will need to get it sorted out...

[84Flatbed]

So no other options at this point? I really don't like the mobile version. I like to be able to see the last post info without having to open each thread.

[BigMike]

So no other options at this point? I really don't like the mobile version. I like to be able to see the last post info without having to open each thread.

At the moment no options, but we can make options. I just need to figure some things out first. I know what you are talking about also (the right columns are all removed in the new "friendly" mobile layout). Give me some time to think some things out. Definitely willing to meet in the middle somehow and provide a good experience here for everyone.

Thanks
Mike

[blackdiamond]

I'm happy to see this thread.  I view the forum mostly of the time from my iPhone 4S and when the forum changed recently it wasn't for the better.  In my case, the threads were only showing on about half of my screen which made it really hard to read.  It seems to be going full screen currently and is back to being ok for me.

BigMike - This is a little bit of a strange offer, but the budget software that I used upgraded a year plus ago and they got a LOT of complaints about the visual aesthetic changes.  I can try to get some screen shots for you from each version so you can have some data on what the general consensus was.  The super short version was the old version used a lighter background and people really preferred it and just got used to the new format.  I think the current Marlin Forum is one of the better ones that I visit.

[84Flatbed]

At the moment no options, but we can make options. I just need to figure some things out first. I know what you are talking about also (the right columns are all removed in the new "friendly" mobile layout). Give me some time to think some things out. Definitely willing to meet in the middle somehow and provide a good experience here for everyone.

Thanks
Mike

It would be nice if the right side columns were there instead of the grey empty space. It wouldn't be bad just swiping side to side to see the left or right column. Although I usually have my phone sideways anyways.

[H8PVMNT]

There are a TON of ads...  What about all the trail gear ads?  They pop up all over the place... 

[H8PVMNT]

 

[BigMike]

It would be nice if the right side columns were there instead of the grey empty space.

So, that is the problem. This change is made based on 1) The webpage width must all fit within the initial viewport (non pinch-zoomed), and 2) The text must be large enough to easily read in this initial state / without zooming.

This week I will provide a second theme for everyone. A good solution for the time being. I'll update once it's done.

Thanks
Mike

[BigMike]

Also thank you for the kind words on your forum experience here. There are many more features we *could* be doing, such as Member Albums / Photo Gallery, but I just haven't set aside much time for new forum features in a while. If you guys would like to make some suggestions on improvements or additions you'd like to see here then I'm all ears. Maybe you've seen something neat on another forum. Most of the time it's possible we can have close to the same thing here. Would help me to better organize possible feature requests.

Regards,
BigMike

[BigMike]

Update on this. We just updated a few more CSS issues (mainly alignment concerns on older cellular devices).

Images still are not fully viewable (I've not spent anytime fixing this yet)

Question: Does anyone actually like this new "mobile friendly" layout? While updating some code I realized that it would be crazy easy to disable this entire shebang for all logged-in users (Google's search indexing bot only views our site as a guest).

So would anyone be upset if we reverted back to the full desktop view of our forum for anyone who is logged in?

Please share your thoughts with me

Regards,
BigMike

[OVRAROK]

I myself am not a fan of the new layout 

[helipilot77]

I vote to revert to the old layout.

[Dingman.]

absolutely go back to the old ways.  it is almost pointless trying to be on this forum with a mobile device now.  In my opinion. 

[BigMike]

Ok guys, how does it look now on your mobile device while logged int?

It only took 2 lines of code. I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier.

Check the difference by logging out ("friendly" mobile view) and then logging back in (full desktop view). Verified working on my jailbroken iP5S running iOS 8.1.2.

This way when Google comes around to "grade" our site, their bot will see it as the friendly mobile format and we'll pass their inspection. Sorry to any guest browsing our forum...

Regards,
BigMike

[Dingman.]

Mike it is back to normal as far as i can tell.   Thanks for fixing it!  Much better!

[BigMike]

Mike it is back to normal as far as i can tell.   Thanks for fixing it!  Much better!

Eggcellent. There is one column on the main index page that is hidden on my cell phone, which lists the total number of posts & topics per board, but it looks much cleaner on my phone without it so I'm ignoring it

[BigMike]

Ok, since I had my favorite PHP editor open (PSPad!), during my lunch break I *FINALLY* finished a project I started a long time ago and that is to display a small image on each board's Message Index page if a thread contains an attachment in it's opening post.

I thought about this like 4 yrs ago and had begun work on it and today I finally got pissed enough to finish it

For example, click here to take a look at the Message Index page of the Rig Gallery board.

The concept is to not display full size images (which would greatly clutter the page) but to just show enough to catch your attention or as a marker for easier thread identification.

Regards,
BigMike

[blackdiamond]

Very nice.

[BigMike]

Update: Google's algorithm has become more strict and our new "mobile friendly" layout is not friendly enough anymore and fails the Google test.

So for the time being, I say screw it. The non-profit, open source group who makes this forum is nearing completion on a massive update that will have mobile support built in by default, so I'm just gonna wait until we make the move to the newer version once released.

I did decide to leave the new icon menu buttons and a few other nice features for mobile devices, but for the most part it'll be forum as normal on mobile devices

Regards,
BigMike