Regarding .mobi domains, one advantage of them over normal domains is that Transcoders seem to ignore .mobi sites better than they do non .mobi domains.

Regarding “on the fly” adaptation for mobiles not being required… this isn’t possible now, and it won’t be in the future unless every phone has the same browser and the same screensize. In fact, I would probably go so far as saying that it just wont be possible unless everyone in the world has the same phone and operator.

A simple example is a banner… corporate brands like their banner at the top of every mobile page, and they like it to fit the screen width exactly. Therefore you need to deliver an appropriately sized banner. That means your system *has* to adapt content for the device or your customer wont be happy.

As for end users, if we look at a mobile wallpapers as an example – there’s hundreds of different sized screens out there. There is no best sized fits all solution out there for delivering a wallpaper. Users with big screens want the wallpaper to fit their phone, so you can’t make them all small. And you can’t make them all big either, as a massive image will break loads of phones with smaller screens.

Anyway – I get what you are saying – and you do raise some interesting issues – but I don’t think that there will ever be the day when you don’t need a special system to create websites for viewing optimally on a mobile device. (Indeed, even desktop websits are optimised for different browsers… I think the problems getting worse not better!)

With kind regards,

Tom

I’ll read the comments when I get home.

http://searchengineland.com/has-the-iphone-made-mobile-seo-obsolete-16655

Cheers
Nadir
http://wwww.seoprinciple.com/

What can I say, I am sorry the article “scared” you so much. ;) But you do know I am right. For some people desktop sites are enough – for example a web hosting client never needed a mobile site. He got enough “mobile” traffic on his desktop site and even customers (mostly for domains).

I partially agree with the idea of creating mobile sites – defining a standard would make it easier for everyone. But from a user perspective… it took years to educate the customers how to find/navigate a website online – it might take as long for mobile content. Mobile sites are different – apparently easier to use, in fact the information gets trunked and buried under a bunch of navigation links. News sites are the easiest to optimize in my view. Sites that sell products face a real challenge. Amazon.mobi is a real pain to browse.

But you did mention something in your comment which I agree with and think you should have included that in your post so not to confuse people:

“Some sites like Amazon are justified to have mobile ready content. For others the endeavor could be too expensive and pointless in the end, if their content doesn’t fit the need of the mobile users. For this reason only I said people should think twice before duplicating content on a .mobi site.”

I do mobile SEO for a mobile content provider, so when I read your post, I almost fell off my chair when you said people didn’t need mobile sites :-S

Note that the results you get from Google mobile search depend on the mobile device that you are using (or masquerading as).

Nadir, believe me, I am not bored. If you want to start the pro and con mobile SEO link war, I will give you some authority sources:

http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2008/08/mobile_seo.html
http://www.fyo.ca/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=29

It is not my intention to discourage people to build mobile sites. Some sites like Amazon are justified to have mobile ready content. For others the endeavor could be too expensive and pointless in the end, if their content doesn’t fit the need of the mobile users. For this reason only I said people should think twice before duplicating content on a .mobi site. Also, keep in mind that .mobi is not the only way to make a mobile site. m.domain.com is also a possibility, and there are a few more.

With Ronan’s feedback now we know that Google does index .mobi preferentially – but I think it does it only for brands and not for keywords. However, this is very good news, that puts .mobi in a more positive light in my opinion.

If I would be totally against .mobi I wouldn’t recommend Instant Mobilizer. I wouldn’t even mention it. My intention was obviously to invite the readers to a conversation. And this conversation so far is anything but boring. We can agree to disagree with grace, Nadir.