Skip to main content
Michael7S
Michael7S
Participant
May 23, 2018
Question

"Your page is not mobile-friendly" label from Google for mobile-optimized PDF

  • May 23, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 1638 views

Our PDFs are getting marked by Google as   "Your page is not mobile-friendly."  Given Google's emphasis on favoring mobile-friendly pages we'd like to avoid that label.

But the labeling of our PDFs by Google seems entirely inconsistent with Google's recommendations. Large, image-fat PDFs (6+mb) are not labeled with the warning, yet tiny optimized PDFs with just a logo and text, embedded fonts etc. are marked as "not mobile-friendly."

Is there an established setting to please Google?   

Here's our checklist so far:

  • Confirm text readable
  • Downsize images
  • Ensure we use embedded [and/or embedded subset] fonts
  • In Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. we choose "Save as Other", "Optimized PDF" and change the setting in the top left to "Mobile". 
  • Upload new optimized PDF and request indexing in Google Search Console.
  • Wait two weeks
  • Try again.

And yet... our new "Optimized"  PDFs are still listed as "not mobile-friendly."  And bulky PDFs that break many of the guidelines seem to escape that label. 

Can we get some clearer guidelines?

-Michael

P.S. Note we are seeing "Your page is not mobile-friendly." message as an annotation in our SERPS while Chrome is logged into our Search Console account.Testing the site's PDF urls in Google's Mobile-Friendly Test yields "Oops! Something went wrong Please wait a bit and try again" over the last 6 weeks.

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

Dov Isaacs
Dov Isaacs
Legend
May 23, 2018

Maybe you ought to query Google directly. They are the ones so-labelling your files. (Not as if Google is the world's expert on PDF!)

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
    Michael7S
    Michael7SAuthor
    Participant
    May 23, 2018

    Thanks Dov.  Posted in Google's Webmaster (Search Console) forums earlier today and will definitely share any relevant answers here.  This has got to be a significant and growing issue for the majority of Acrobat users who put content on the web (perhaps not?), thus hoping Adobe or other experienced users have an answer. 

    -Michael

    Dov Isaacs
    Dov Isaacs
    Legend
    May 23, 2018

    Right? Dov, We can wish Google would reply, but I suspect they don't know or have to be careful with any official reply.  But then their push for mobile-friendly results is SO strong, one would think they'd have clear guidelines for PDFs--which they do parse and index - and warn us that some are not in compliance.

    There is my assumption that some subset of Acrobat users want their PDFs to show up in Google results.  Perhaps a majority.  

    So in the wishful world, the Acrobat team would have this somewhere on the priority list as a common requirement - perhaps already a capability with a known configuration of existing features.   What would it be?   Or, now , or later, enough Acrobat users are finding their PDFs labeled with the warning (and ostensibly removed with Google's Mobile-First initiative) that we band together to figure out what works and what doesn't.  

    In my testing, it seemed certain that use of embedded fonts was the common correlation with what was mobile friendly  and the absence of embedded fonts correlated with "Not mobile Friendly".  Subsequent testing showed that not to be true.  We tested optimized PDFs with fonts as embedded subsets, and they are still listed as mobile-unfriendly.   I'll keep testing and sharing.

    If others have ideas for output settings that seems to avoid the 'not mobile-friendly' label, I'll be happy to test those and share results.

    -Michael


    Assuming Google actually has some criteria, I suspect that they might be associated with a combination of file size (in bytes or page count) as well as whether the PDF file is “optimized for fast view” – created such that content on the first page can display without downloading/reading the entire PDF file first (this is an option that is available with Adobe PDF creation tools) thus effecting initial display performance.

    Or maybe they are doing something really dumb such as knocking off points if the PDF file contains any CMYK or ICC color managed content?

    Or perhaps they look at text point size or page size in terms of ease of display and reading on small devices?

    We simply don't know. If we knew what these criteria were at Adobe, we would either provide options for achieve them and/or try to persuade Google to modify those criteria if we believed that they were bogus. But they don't seem to be talking (just like most of their labeling of search results).

    Glad to know what you find via testing.

              - Dov

    - Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
      Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
      Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices