A Google Webmaster Help thread has someone saying that his vendor is pitching him on making a PWA, progressive web app, for his web site, over responsive because Google prefers PWAs and will thus rank them better.

Google’s John Mueller said this is false and said in plain English, “PWAs currently don’t have any advantage in Google Search.” He added, “and as far as I know, there are no plans to change this.”

Of course, PWAs are a Google based idea and has been really been the trend these days, even over native mobile apps. But PWAs over responsive? No, it is PWAs over native mobile apps if anything. Some sites are going with AMP and PWAs and ditching responsive, some even more extreme sites are going completely PWAs. But going PWAs has its own SEO challenges and can actually cause issues.

That being said, here is the full message John shared:

Have fun, break stuff, experiment, but don’t do any of this stuff with blindfolds on.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.