What is difference between Responsive and Mobile web design?

Are you stuck between a rock and a hard place trying to figure out why you can access your company website through your mobile device? If yes, then you are not alone. Recent statics showed that over 40% of the people who use the internet do not know what the difference between responsive and mobile design is. However, don’t worry, here you will find the right information you need to fully understand each and the key difference between the two.

So, what is the responsive and mobile website?

In simple terms, responsive website is a site, which can be access through both PC and mobile devices without changing the general outlook of the website. On the other hand, mobile sites are specifically websites that are designed to be accessed only through mobile devices.

There are several differences between responsive and mobile sites. The sites are different with regard to the content therein and its maintenance. Currently, online content can be accessed through both computers and mobile devices. For responsive website, there is only one platform to manage. In such a case, the content available for anyone accesses the site through a computer is the same content available for another user accessing through a tablet. However, for mobile websites, they are only available for mobile devices and in case there is another PC version, it is entirely independent. To manage such sites, the two distinct platforms have to be worked on.

The other difference between responsive and mobile sites is in the CSS. In responsive web design, a single URL delivers the site to both desktop and mobile devices. On the other hand, mobile design uses different URL for desktop and mobiles. However, Google discourages the use of mobile designs but encourages responsive web design. When it comes to duplicate content, a single website belonging to a single user can be shutdown because of content duplication, while actually it is mobile design website. To avoid this and the complexities involved in mobile design, Google advocates for responsive websites.

Responsive websites are cheaper to maintain that mobile websites. Website maintenance takes money and/or time. If you rely on hired experts to maintain your websites, the you will need money, if you hire experts for a certain websites jobs, while you take the other, then you need both finance and time, and if you do everything by yourself, then you need plenty of time. For responsive websites, you might need about two hours to do a certain maintenance practice. If you are using mobile design, you might require double that time because you are managing two different websites.

Regardless of the differences between responsive and mobile design, it is adviced that you use responsive web design unless you have an excellent reason to go the mobile design way. In any case, Google support responsive websites, indexes responsive websites, and the search crawler are designed to crawl easier on responsive web design.