What are Switchboard Tags?

[AlyLauren]

When Google published their new guidelines for mobile SEO, the item that made headlines was their declaration of responsive design as the preferred option. Last month, I covered the basics on how responsive design works and how to optimize it.

But the second option Google discussed got lost in the headlines: increased support for purpose-built mobile sites located on m-dot subdomains (e.g. m.brand.com. ) This type of site had previously been flagged by Google’s Matt Cutts as being the favorite from a usability standpoint.

While Google now favors responsive sites, their support for m-dot sites hasn’t gone away. In fact, Google introduced a new set of tags to better address the switchboard functions that are needed for this type of website.