Possible Google mobile friendly issue

  • Resolved CB

    (@cbrandt)


    6 years, 1 month ago

    Hi,

    Perhaps I’m going crazy, but I have a problem with Google “mobile friendly” test that I believe may be related to this great plugin.

    I keep seeing on Webmaster Tools > Google Search Console > Mobile Usability report that several of my website pages are not mobile friendly. When I hit the button to “Test Live Page”, the test shows in green letters: Page is mobile friendly! And yet when I click on “Validate Fix” button, again, it quickly checks my pages and the result is no good.

    I believe that Google Search Console tools are using the version of the page that was cached by Googlebot, while the “Test Live Page” button, as its name implies, is fetching the live page and therefore the functioning page.

    Then very likely these cached HTML pages are invoking Autoptimize CSS files that no longer exist, and rendering the page CSS-less, which of course makes them not only not mobile-friendly, but not friendly in general.

    The flow would be something like this:

    1) Fresh HTML page is cached by Google. Autoptimize CSS files are good. Page is mobile friendly.
    2) Time goes by, I make changes on my settings and delete Autoptimize cache, CSS files are then regenerated with another name.
    3) Google tries to render pages using the cached HTML, which invokes Autoptimize CSS files that are no longer existent. Page is not mobile friendly.

    If my assumptions are right, I could of course keep asking Google to fetch my website again everyday. But that’s a chore, easy to forget. Also, several times when I did this, Google just did not replace cached pages, perhaps because it sees no significant differences in the HTML page.

    So here is my question, or rather suggestion, for this plugin: Would it be possible that the CSS files generated by Autoptimize be named after the slug of the page, instead of the hash it currently uses? Like:

    autoptimize_my-beautful-wordpress-page-title.css instead of
    autoptimize_5d424338eec4bde7dbe8f3654ac3ea95.css

    Then the CSS file name would be constant, a new file overwriting the old, but always available to King Googlebot.

    But then, again, I may just be going nuts, and this whole issue is to be blamed on other factors, who knows?

    Thank you again for this great plugin.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Plugin Author Optimizing Matters

    (@optimizingmatters)

    your assumptions are right, but keeping the name constant including page slug is not possible for 2 reasons I’m afraid;

    1. one CSS-file can (and should, ideally) be used on multiple pages
    2. the 2nd part seemingly random part of the filename is actually a hash (calculated string) based on the contents of the file, so if the filename is different that is because the original CSS changed. this hash is an important part of how AO works and I cannot do without it I’m afraid.

    Hope this clarifies,
    frank

    Thread Starter CB

    (@cbrandt)

    Than you, Frank.

    This is a bad situation and I believe it’s Google’s fault. Its Googlebot team should re-program the bot in a way that, when a HTML file on cache gets 404s for its CSS or JS files, the cached-HTML gets dropped and a new page is fetched.

    I’ve posted a topic on this issue at https://productforums.google.com, but it didn’t get much traction.

    If you search on that forum for “mobile friendly” and sort it by day, you’ll notice that this issue comes up several times a day (and many users are not using WordPress, let alone Autoptimize)

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by CB.
    Plugin Author Optimizing Matters

    (@optimizingmatters)

    thanks for the feedback, I agree ??

    I observe the same behavior: just taking a look at my pages Google claims keeping in cache (from the ‘in cache’ in search results) will always display a page without css.
    In my opinion, the real question is: does this missing css file for cached version affects SEO evaluation?

    If so, why not keep these old versions available for a couple of weeks, as offered by barryhunter in your topic?

    Plugin Author Optimizing Matters

    (@optimizingmatters)

    In my opinion, the real question is: does this missing css file for cached version affects SEO evaluation?

    as far as I know; no ??

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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