Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Should I redirect mobile traffic to a different url? Will it hurt SEO?
-
I'm working on a site that has lots of great content and ranks well but essentially the money is generated by affiliate links. I don't have a mobile version of the site but the company I'm affiliated with does offer a mobile redirect to their domain. Will redirecting mobile traffic to a different url hurt my SEO? I think the user will get a better experience by landing on a mobile page but I don't know if google will see it like that.
Any thoughts?
-
Hi Samuel,
I understand why it makes sense from a user experience perspective, although I'd be a little concerned that it would be a bit weird, especially if the domains are branded differently.
I'd probably start by avoiding an automatic redirect. The simplest option is probably to include a prominent CTA on the desktop version that says 'view mobile version at www.otherdomain.com'. If you want to get a bit fancier, you could display a message when a mobile user agent is detected, saying something like 'it looks like you're on a mobile device. Would you like to view a mobile-friendly version of this page?'. If you do this, make sure that
- a) the page is still accessible to a crawler with a mobile user agent (in other words, don't require input from the mobile user in order to view the desktop version, just include it as an option)
- b) use a cookie to avoid asking your mobile users to answer the question again every time they visit.
If you really want to do the redirect, start by testing on just a couple pages to check for any negative impact before rolling it out further.
-
I don't think you will have any problem. It won't be a doorway page or something like that because you are not deceiving the users, you are actually showing them the information they are requesting in the best possible way.
-
Thanks for your reply. I makes sense to me to have users land on a mobile page but just to clarify I'd be redirecting mobile traffic to a completely different domain not just a different URL. Will that be a problem?
-
Hi Samuel,
Google won't penalize you in any way if you redirect mobile users to another URL. Here you can find Google's Recommendations for building smartphone-optimized websites.
The best way to go for them is building a responsive design, but as you can see, Google encourages mobile redirections too.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Filter By Category bad for seo?
Hello Everyone! I know that a single product should not have filter by color option since it will create duplicate content, and you have to use canonical tags to solve it. BUT how about sorting through products via category/brands?
On-Page Optimization | | Safxmed
Filter by category changes the URL of the General shop page (ex: hello.com/Shop/Category1022039 ). This page only displays the products within, no content/ descriptions etc unlike the original category page (ORIGINAL CATEGORY PAGE) Each of these category/brand already have their own individual pages (ex: hello.com/Shop/A). This is the page that will be optimized for content, FAQ, and ranking etc. Unlike in the url created when filtering through the categories. So technically I would have 2 URL for each Brand/Category. Would they compete with each other? What would you guys suggest. Please advise me on this. Thank You0 -
Are Wildcard Subdomain Hurting my SEO?
I have some sites with a lot of categories (category, sub-category, sub-subcategory) and locations (country, state/territory, city). To avoid listing pages really deep in my hierarchy I used wildcard subdomains for the locations, but lately I have been told that might be hurting my overall SEO efforts. I have a lot of URLs like https://city-state-country.example.com on one side of the domain and example.com/category/subcategory/subsubcategory on the other. In the middle you see stuff like city-state-country.example.com/category/subcategory/subsubcategory and everything in between. Would I be better off moving the locations to the right side of the domain name? Then you might find stuff like example.com/country/state/city/category/subcategory/subsubcategory and everything in between. I think I could do the new rewrite rules fairly easily since every country slug is just two characters long.
On-Page Optimization | | PostAlmostAnything0 -
How Do SSL Certificates Affect On SEO?
Does really a SSL certificate affect on SEO? How? Why? According to my hosting provider (ganje.host), "https" improves SEO! As I know, It decreases speed. So how does it improve SEO when my speed is slower than before?
On-Page Optimization | | MirzaeeMustafa0 -
Homepage SEO optimization
Hello, I’m almost ready to lunch my new website https://thetravelhoop.com , I just need to create the content of the product page and put all the images. I would like to know what you think in terms of SEO of the home page (is the content that I want to rank the most). My doubt is that since it is a landing page, there is not a lot of text but mostly <h>. It’s not a styling decision of course (I know is bad practice) but mostly because they are supposed to be title/headings.</h> Do you think I’m doing something wrong, or do you have any suggestions? Thank you, Daniele
On-Page Optimization | | danielecelsa0 -
Tags - Good or bad for SEO
We are getting Moz errors for duplicate content because tag pages share the same blog posts. Is there any way to fix this? Are these errors bad for SEO, or can I simply disregard these and ignore them? We are also getting Moz errors for missing descriptions on tag pages. I am unsure how to fix these errors, as we do not actually have pages for these on our WordPress site where we are able to put in a description. I have heard that having tags can be good for SEO? (We don't mind having several links that show up when searching for us on google...) As far as the SEO goes, I am not sure what to do. Does anyone know the best strategy?
On-Page Optimization | | Christinaa0 -
Does Bolding Text Have Any Impact on SEO?
Someone told me it does but I thought that was old school way of thinking. Any thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | tryfantasy1 -
301 Redirect to external site
Hi guys, We have a client who is getting their website redesigned through us. They are discontinuing couple of their services which will not get featured in the new site. They are fairly well ranked for these services and my client wishes to 301 redirect these pages to an external site owned by his friend so that they benefit out of the ranking. The question is: Will my client's website's general ranking get affected due to 301 redirecting to an external site? The external site is not spammy or red-flagged by Google (at the moment, at least). Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | RameshNair
Ramesh Nair0 -
Howdy, do curse words on your content article hurt SEO in any way or form?
howdy, do curse words on your content article hurt SEO in any way or form? and if so is there a "list" of registered curse keywords that should be avoided?
On-Page Optimization | | david3050