Getting Some Mobile Warnings... Did Google Update?

[vegasrick]

I'm having an issue where pages are coming up with "non mobile friendly" warnings in search.

I do mobile tests on those pages and they pass. I do fetch as google and they look as mobile as can be. I do tests on chrome with user agents and it goes to the mobile version.

I will clearly note - the site does "dynamic serving" based on user agent/screen size.

When I had this problem last year as well. It lasted for a few days and only with our most recent content and then resolved itself on it's own.

One webmaster told me this is common with dynamic sites, that sometimes the bot gets confused and sorts it out?

We are using separate css files for each dynamic version, so I know that's not the issue.

Our articles for the last few hours are NOT coming up without those webmaster warnings when I see them in search - but 95% of the articles posted in the prior 2-3 days before those articles in question, they are being tagged as non-friendly (for my eyes only in search). We have over 110K articles and everything prior to today appears fine.

Hoping someone can have more input? Is this some issue that comes and goes with dynamic serving?

Did Google do some sort of update that might be causing this? Because all of the affected pages are passing every Google related test, so I'm pretty much grasping at straws.

[vegasrick]

Now even our main page is coming up with this problem.

A buddy of mine is having a similar problem as well, also does dynamic serving.

Both of us use Cloudlfare. I wonder is this some new issue between them and Google when it comes to dynamic serving.

[vlexo]

Do you mean this?...

Google Misinforming Webmasters That Their Page Is Not Mobile Friendly
Dec 28, 2016
[seroundtable.com...]

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 9:22 pm (utc) on Feb 16, 2017]
[edit reason] added information about link destination [/edit]

[vegasrick]

Yes, that's exactly what's going on.

Appears to be a new message on that article (posted 11 hours ago) where someone noticed the same issues.

Just to note, two of the pages in question are scoring 57 and 60 respectively on page insights. Not the best, but certainly shouldn't be low enough to trigger a warning.

[vegasrick]

I spoke briefly to the guy who wrote the SEO article.

He says all of the affected pages were always getting those flags in Google search, but he never saw them flagged on the backend of search console.

If it's just a search bug then it's more of an annoyance, but if the entire site starts getting flagged on the backend of search console then that is a problem.

A buddy of mine is having that none-friendly flag hitting his main page on search. He told me that he doesn't see main page ever flagged in search console and nobody can make heads or tails on why it's happening.

[vlexo]

It happens for the sites that I own and where I am logged in and have Search Console linked up.

If I am logged out, I don't see this message, making me think that only site owners will see this message (plus it references 'your page'). So it shouldn't be impacting customers searching for your website.

Thanks!

[vegasrick]

@vlexo.

Are you pages actually being flagged in search console? Or is this the same bug where your pages are just being flagged on search results?

And yes, those messages are only viewable by the site owner.

[JesterMagic]

Yeah I see my home page flagged in the search results now as not mobile friendly but when I run the Google Mobile Friendly test it says it is mobile friendly.

Not sure what is going on. Must be a bug.

[vegasrick]

@jester, did you notice this before or just happened?

Is the homepage also flagged on Search Console or just organic search results?

[vegasrick]

Complaints over the same issue starting to shower down on Google support board.

[edited by: not2easy at 7:07 pm (utc) on Feb 17, 2017]
[edit reason] removed broken link [/edit]

[JesterMagic]

I usually only check the search console and do the mobile friendly check test. No complaints in the search console.

I hardly ever check my sites when logged into google as I am looking at positions so I can't say how long it was showing not friendly in the search results as I had always assumed before I would be told in the search console or I would spot it when I run the testing tool.

[JesterMagic]

@vegasrick your google product forums link doesn't go to the topic can you repost?

[vegasrick]

@jester, try this. Google Forums Home [productforums.google.com]

Just search for keywords "mobile friendly" and sort by date, tons of guys with the same issue right now.

The guy who wrote that SEO article told me its a widespread bug.

[edited by: not2easy at 7:11 pm (utc) on Feb 17, 2017]
[edit reason] added descriptive anchor text [/edit]

[vegasrick]

Here it is = [seroundtable.com...]

[not2easy]

I see we're having "googlelinkdifficulties". I'll snip out the malfunctioning links so others are spared the confusion. Google often uses URLs that are not simple to link to. I was able to find the discussion there (at least it looks like this is it):

https://productforums.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/webmasters/8soYYamRWiE;context-place=forum/webmasters

and another from that page which leads to additional examples:

https://productforums.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topicsearchin/webmasters/mobile$20friendly%7Csort:date

linking changes these URLs so they are text for copy/paste.

[rustybrick]

Google confirmed the bug and is removing the label until they fix it, see [twitter.com...]

[Robert Charlton]

Google confirmed the bug and is removing the label until they fix it...

Thanks, Barry.