How to check mobile version of the site? Ways to test mobile sites

The development of a mobile version of the site is not only a possible whim of developers, an additional expense item (or earnings, if we talk about contractors) and the care of visitors to the resource. According to the latest announcements from representatives of Google, sites that do not meet the requirements of adaptive design will be pessimized in the search, carried out from mobile devices. The domestic search engine Yandex also issued recommendations "How important it is to be mobile" and assured that, acting for the sake of convenience of users of mobile devices, will mark in the search engine output mobile versions and prefer adaptive pages.

So, developers need to adapt sites for smartphones and check the serviceability of the resource display. Otherwise, in the near future, you can expect a significant loss of traffic, and hence potential customers, because the new algorithms from Google and Yandex are already in place. You can check the mobile version of the site in various ways: by resizing the browser window when switching to developer mode, using mobile device emulators or web services.

The site's friendliness to mobile devices

Adaptivity to mobile devices is estimated by various parameters. It is important to check the mobile version of the site not only in terms of correct display, it is worth taking into account other factors:

• Lack of animation, "heavy" design and pictures;
• Resource loading speed (should be minimal);
• No need for horizontal scrolling;
• Lack of Silverlight plug-ins and Java applets;
• Simple site navigation;
• The meta-tag viewport is registered in the code.

If the listed conditions are met, the algorithms of the most common search engines recognize the web page as mobile-friendly and increase the site's position in the issuance relative to resources that are not adapted.

Real testing on mobile devices

It is most convenient to test the mobile version of the site on real smartphones. This method will allow to carry out tests in real conditions. Ideally, it is better to check a web resource on several devices, but if the budget of the project does not involve the cost of acquiring several smartphones of the most popular models, it will be enough to have devices based on Android or Apple.

Resizing the browser window

The simplest, but not optimal in terms of testing, is to resize the browser window. If the page is made using adaptive design technology , you can check the mobile version of the site in this way. But in those cases when a separate design is applied, the resource needs to clearly indicate that the user has come from a smartphone, tablet or other mobile device. So, this method allows you to check if there is a mobile version of the site. But the correctness of the mapping (in terms of technology) is unlikely to be assessed.

Switch to developer mode in the browser

The more optimal way to check the mobile version of the site (Google or Yandex, as well as other search engines, highlight adaptability in the list of the most important factors affecting ranking) is to switch to developer mode in the browser. The method works in a similar way with several browsers:

• Mozilla: You can go to developer mode by selecting the option "Adaptive design" in the "Development" menu; By pressing the combination Ctrl + Shift + M; By clicking on the "Adaptive design mode" button on the web developer toolbar;
• Chrome: go to mobile mode by pressing the F12 function key , then select the mobile version icon (smartphone in the upper left corner of the window that appears).

In Opera, you switch to developer mode to check the mobile version by pressing Ctrl + Shift + i, but there is another way. A special version of the browser - Opera Mobile Classic Emulator - allows you to differentiate the mobile design. Versions of the program exist for the main operating systems.

Emulators for mobile devices: Android Studio and Apple Xcode

You can check the mobile version of the site ("Yandex" and Google) using emulators of mobile devices, which for Android and Apple are respectively Android Studio or Apple Xcode.

These tools quite accurately reproduce the site in the form it will look on mobile devices: the programs pre-installed the most common versions of browsers for mobile devices. However, emulators do not take into account the download speed and some other nuances that can be observed in real conditions.

To check it is enough to install one of the above programs on the computer and open the site from the emulator.

Web Services Testing Mobile Design

There are also easier ways to check the mobile version of the site. For example, the Responsinator online service allows you to evaluate the correctness of the resource display on mobile devices and the convenience of using the site from the user's side. The resource displays the site as it would appear on six different Android or Apple-based devices and in several orientations.

Verify web page optimization for mobile devices

Other resources that allow you to check the mobile version of the site, additionally assess the adaptability, and not only show what the site would look like on different devices. The most authoritative services: Google Mobile Friendly and "Yandex WebMaster" (checking web pages). Evaluate the optimization of the site for mobile devices is also a means of checking Bing or, for example, Mobile Checker from W3C.

All that is required from the webmaster when evaluating the mobile site version using online services is to enter the resource address and wait for the analysis to finish. Most of the above services test the optimization of the friendliness settings for mobile devices, which were listed above.

So, you can evaluate the adaptability of a web resource in several ways: starting from testing on real smartphones, tablets or other mobile devices, or resizing a web browser window, checking in emulators or in the developer mode of web browsers and ending with the use of services from "Yandex" and "Google". To check the mobile version of the site is comprehensively very simple, and this will allow making necessary edits and improving the position of the site in search results.