Webmaster forum - WAP in 2007

Author

WAP in 2007

Phil Payne

2007-01-27, 11:09 pm

I messed around a little with WML back in 2002.

There were several problems back then - not least the unpredictable
capabilities (especially storage capacities) of the available WAP
clients and the sheer cost of browsing at mobile phone rates.

My phone accepts RS-MMC cards - 1GB now costs GBP16. Most phones
currently shipping have cameras or MP3 players and consequently huge
storage capacities. Many contract phones include free minutes and GPRS
is threatening to become affordable.

So I'm revisiting the idea. Google is gently ramming Mobile Sitemaps
down my throat at every opportunity and I must admit there are more WML
than HTML-capable platforms out there. It's just that absolutely no
one uses them.

I'm putting a trial site up. Does anyone have any recent experience of
the relevance of SEO to mobile sites? The obvious stuff doesn't work -
there are no meta tags, no description, and you simply cannot include
vast amounts of text. Do search engines index WML pages at the deck or
card level?

Capacity of current browser platforms? I'm doing most of my testing on
a Siemens S65 - but my experience four years ago was that browser
capabilty was both extremely critical and extremely variable. I've got
some HUGE files to load into its browser, but it can be very slow (tens
of seconds) to do quite simple things like a BACK request. Odd
behaviour - instant display of the start of the target page but a
delayed return to the original jumping-off point.

It strikes me as odd. There's no public evidence that anyone is doing
anything at all with WAP - yet there is a limited opportunity already
and 3G technologies _could_ lead to an explosion.

I'm aware of http://www.webmasterworld.com/pda_mobile_computing/ but it
lacks SEO perspectives.

SpaceGirl

2007-01-27, 11:09 pm

Phil Payne wrote:

> I messed around a little with WML back in 2002.
>
> There were several problems back then - not least the unpredictable
> capabilities (especially storage capacities) of the available WAP
> clients and the sheer cost of browsing at mobile phone rates.
>
> My phone accepts RS-MMC cards - 1GB now costs GBP16. Most phones
> currently shipping have cameras or MP3 players and consequently huge
> storage capacities. Many contract phones include free minutes and GPRS
> is threatening to become affordable.
>
> So I'm revisiting the idea. Google is gently ramming Mobile Sitemaps
> down my throat at every opportunity and I must admit there are more WML
> than HTML-capable platforms out there. It's just that absolutely no
> one uses them.
>
> I'm putting a trial site up. Does anyone have any recent experience of
> the relevance of SEO to mobile sites? The obvious stuff doesn't work -
> there are no meta tags, no description, and you simply cannot include
> vast amounts of text. Do search engines index WML pages at the deck or
> card level?
>
> Capacity of current browser platforms? I'm doing most of my testing on
> a Siemens S65 - but my experience four years ago was that browser
> capabilty was both extremely critical and extremely variable. I've got
> some HUGE files to load into its browser, but it can be very slow (tens
> of seconds) to do quite simple things like a BACK request. Odd
> behaviour - instant display of the start of the target page but a
> delayed return to the original jumping-off point.
>
> It strikes me as odd. There's no public evidence that anyone is doing
> anything at all with WAP - yet there is a limited opportunity already
> and 3G technologies _could_ lead to an explosion.
>
> I'm aware of http://www.webmasterworld.com/pda_mobile_computing/ but it
> lacks SEO perspectives.

The reason nobody is working with WAP is that it's a dead, out-moded
format IMO.

Mobile Flash is where everything is at this year (Flash Lite). WML is a
horrific, expensive to process system, where as FL is self enclosed.
Pretty much all smartphones are shipped with FL now. FL is identical
across all platforms, so no worrying about the rendering capabilities
of the users device.

And if not FL, full XHTML. Both my cellphones have full XHTML browsers
built in (they're also both 3G video phones).

I think WML has just been superseded; mobile devices are pretty much
able to do everything a regular desktop can do now, just with a much
smaller format screen.

Gwin

2007-01-27, 11:09 pm

Phil Payne wrote:
> I messed around a little with WML back in 2002.
>
> There were several problems back then - not least the unpredictable
> capabilities (especially storage capacities) of the available WAP
> clients and the sheer cost of browsing at mobile phone rates.
>
> My phone accepts RS-MMC cards - 1GB now costs GBP16. Most phones
> currently shipping have cameras or MP3 players and consequently huge
> storage capacities. Many contract phones include free minutes and GPRS
> is threatening to become affordable.
>
> So I'm revisiting the idea. Google is gently ramming Mobile Sitemaps
> down my throat at every opportunity and I must admit there are more WML
> than HTML-capable platforms out there. It's just that absolutely no
> one uses them.
>
> I'm putting a trial site up. Does anyone have any recent experience of
> the relevance of SEO to mobile sites? The obvious stuff doesn't work -
> there are no meta tags, no description, and you simply cannot include
> vast amounts of text. Do search engines index WML pages at the deck or
> card level?
>
> Capacity of current browser platforms? I'm doing most of my testing on
> a Siemens S65 - but my experience four years ago was that browser
> capabilty was both extremely critical and extremely variable. I've got
> some HUGE files to load into its browser, but it can be very slow (tens
> of seconds) to do quite simple things like a BACK request. Odd
> behaviour - instant display of the start of the target page but a
> delayed return to the original jumping-off point.
>
> It strikes me as odd. There's no public evidence that anyone is doing
> anything at all with WAP - yet there is a limited opportunity already
> and 3G technologies _could_ lead to an explosion.
>
> I'm aware of http://www.webmasterworld.com/pda_mobile_computing/ but it
> lacks SEO perspectives.

wap?
switch your thoughts to xhtml and flash lite
http://www.adobe.com/mobile/

cristina

2007-01-27, 11:09 pm

Not very helpful, sorry....
I have a modest Motorola L6
with an html/xhtml/wap-ish browser
and there is no question that
(at least for now)
I prefer the results from the Google search for the whole web
to the Google search for mobile sites,
so I look mostly at html/xhtml pages.

Phil Payne wrote:

> I messed around a little with WML back in 2002.
>
> There were several problems back then - not least the unpredictable
> capabilities (especially storage capacities) of the available WAP
> clients and the sheer cost of browsing at mobile phone rates.
>
> My phone accepts RS-MMC cards - 1GB now costs GBP16. Most phones
> currently shipping have cameras or MP3 players and consequently huge
> storage capacities. Many contract phones include free minutes and GPRS
> is threatening to become affordable.
>
> So I'm revisiting the idea. Google is gently ramming Mobile Sitemaps
> down my throat at every opportunity and I must admit there are more WML
> than HTML-capable platforms out there. It's just that absolutely no
> one uses them.
>
> I'm putting a trial site up. Does anyone have any recent experience of
> the relevance of SEO to mobile sites? The obvious stuff doesn't work -
> there are no meta tags, no description, and you simply cannot include
> vast amounts of text. Do search engines index WML pages at the deck or
> card level?
>
> Capacity of current browser platforms? I'm doing most of my testing on
> a Siemens S65 - but my experience four years ago was that browser
> capabilty was both extremely critical and extremely variable. I've got
> some HUGE files to load into its browser, but it can be very slow (tens
> of seconds) to do quite simple things like a BACK request. Odd
> behaviour - instant display of the start of the target page but a
> delayed return to the original jumping-off point.
>
> It strikes me as odd. There's no public evidence that anyone is doing
> anything at all with WAP - yet there is a limited opportunity already
> and 3G technologies _could_ lead to an explosion.
>
> I'm aware of http://www.webmasterworld.com/pda_mobile_computing/ but it
> lacks SEO perspectives.