SEO Hosting Blog

Last week I explained that in May of 2009, Google launched a new side panel called Search Options, that allows users to filter search results in different ways. The idea behind this started churning about eight years ago, and was first unveiled May of 2007 as universal search. Yesterday, Google announced that they have made search options available for high-end mobile phones, specifically Android, iPhone, and Palm WebOS.

Using Google Search options allow results to be filtered in a number of ways. The search options available are: All results, videos, news, blogs, books, forums, and reviews. Within that, you can also filter by: Any time, recent results, past hour, past 24 hours, past week, past year, and specific date range. I offer a positive review of this update. As an iPhone user, I have to say that Google is one of the only companies who I feel is really taking full advantage of the high-end mobile market. It’s obvious that millions of people have iPhones and other high-end mobile devices, and yet, it surprises me not to see other companies taking advantage of that.

In my previous article, I had mentioned that there is SEO value in knowing how Google search options can filter search results. Now that these options are available for mobile search, coupled with the fact that Google also released a new version of AdSense for high-end mobile devices, optimizing your site for mobile users is especially important, especially if you’re participating in the Google AdSense program. All in all, not many bloggers or webmasters are taking full advantage of the mobile market. Climbing the ranks in mobile search results is quickly becoming more of a vital source towards overall traffic. At least that’s the case when I check my own personal stats.

In my research I have noticed multiple users asking that Google focus some attention to the BlackBerry and Windows Mobile market. As a former BlackBerry Curve user, I can say that surfing the web using this device was a little less than desirable. While my opinion for BlackBerry users is to upgrade, I do know that Google does have a very nice Blackberry Mobile App available that might interest you. That said, take a moment to check your stats. Compare them to last year and I believe that you’ll see a significant increase in traffic from mobile users. Seeing this for yourself, I think you’ll also agree that more can be done towards capitalizing on the mobile market even further.

Yesterday Google released a new version of AdSense geared for high end mobile phones. The news of this event was broadcast across four of their official blogs, two of which completely duplicated the content. (#1, #2, #3, #4) Ironically, Google also released a new parameter handling tool which helps publishers avoid duplicate content issues. More about that coming soon. At any rate, publishers and advertisers have a brand new, high end mobile phone optimized version of AdSense to work with. And I have to say it looks great.

Google created the new version of Adsense for high-end devices because of the rising number of people using them. High-end mobile phones such as the iPhone are equipped with full HTML browsers. The iPhone for instance has special mobile version of Safari installed. Sites that utilize AdSense for high-end devices will have more control over how the ads appear to high-end device users compared to the displaying ads for all phones.

Careful consideration may need to be taking towards choosing the right device to target. Google explains that if your site is written in xhtml or html and primarily targets high-end phones, such as iPhone, then choosing the High-end Devices Only Code is ideal. However, if your site supports a wide variety of handsets then server side scripting may be required, thus choosing the All Phones option will be best.

No code changes are required to be implemented. That means if you’re targeting all mobile devices, or if you’re not able to make mass changes to your website, then you’re not required to update your AdSense code. Instead, the standard mobile version AdSense ads will appear. However, and once again, if you’re wanting to take full advantage of this enhanced version of AdSense, then making efforts towards updating your code is recommended.