Mobile Site Domain/URL Structure
-
We are currently building a mobile optimised version of our main website and I had some questions with regard to SEO.
1. Is it best to structure the domain as:
yourdomain/m
2. It is correct to place rel="cannonical" on the mobile pages and to have only the main site indexed?
Thanks in advance and links or books on mobile seo you can direct me to that would be greatly appreciated.
Phil
-
As Adam suggests, responsive design seems to be the preferred route at the moment.
This is different in that you have a single URL for everything. Whatever platform the end-user users all content is sent to their browser and then it is rendered differently for different devices.
This requires a slightly different mindset as you are effectively building one version of a site, but changing the way it appears to different users. Therefore, if you want a "stripped down" version of the site then it is best done by serving up different navigation.
However - if you are committed to desktop/mobile versions of the site and they are utilising the same content then I would use a canonical from teh mobile to the desktop site. I think that the domain choice is pretty subjective. I'd prefer m.domain as it is less likely to get confused with your overall site structure.
However, if you are not yet committed down one path and the intention is to serve the same content - definitely look at the responsive option.
-
I think you may find this helpful: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details
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
-
Can adding thousands of new indexable URLs to my site at once be a problem?
Hi everyone, I am currently working on a project that will quickly add thousands of new indexable URLs to my site. For context, the site currently has over a million indexable pages. Is there any danger of adding a few thousand URLs at once to the site? Could it potentially affect crawlability/SEO/other pages? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | StevenLevine0 -
Robots.txt & Mobile Site
Background - Our mobile site is on the same domain as our main site. We use a folder approach for our mobile site abc.com/m/home.html We are re-directing traffic to our mobile site vie device detection and re-direction exists for a handful of pages of our site ie most of our pages do not redirect the user to a mobile equivalent page. Issue – Our mobile pages are being indexed in desktop Google searches Input Required – How should we modify our robots.txt so that the desktop google index does not index our mobile pages/urls User-agent: Googlebot-Mobile Disallow: /m User-agent: `YahooSeeker/M1A1-R2D2` Disallow: /m User-agent: `MSNBOT_Mobile` Disallow: /m Many thanks
Technical SEO | | CeeC-Blogger0 -
Redesigning the site with same Domain (IMP.)
technical SEO question - If we take down a site and use the same domain but just redesign the whole site. I guess sometimes in this case Google still keeps indexing old pages though they do not exist now! What the solution for this? Google suggests redirect them to a 404 page but in this case as its same domain- Is it possible that we throw 404 errors and redirect them to 404 page and this 404 page exists in the new site itself (but of course we don't have link our menu to this 404 page) (if that makes sense)? Would appreciate if you can suggest or add anything to above topic.
Technical SEO | | Personnel_Concept0 -
Site command / Footprint Question
Hi All, I am looking for websites with keywords in the domain and I am using: inurl:keyword/s The results that come back include sub-pages and not only domains with the keywords in the root domain. example of what i mean: www.website.com/keyword/ What I want displayed only: www.keyword/s.com Does anyone know of a site command i can use to display URL's with keywords in the root domain only? Thanks in Advance Greg
Technical SEO | | AndreVanKets0 -
Keywords based domains redirecting to a site.. is it SPAM?
Keywords based domains redirecting to a site is considered spam isn't it ? And if yes, then is it considered spam in all cases whether those domain based sites are related or non related to main site?
Technical SEO | | Personnel_Concept0 -
Vanity / Short URLs 301?
Hi everyone, I'm working on a website that uses a lot of short urls eg http://www.forest.com/oaktrees. A quick check reveals these are currently 302 status. My question is should these be made 301s - a lot of them are in off-page content and looking at GA attract a lot of clicks. I've not managed to see a definitive answer to this after several Google searches. All help and advice greatly appreciated. Bw Jon
Technical SEO | | CoL-PR0 -
/forum/ or /hookah-forum/
I'm building a new website on Hookah.org. It will have a forum and blog. Should I put them in Hookah.org/hookah-forum/ and Hookah.com/hookah-blog/ or Hookah.org/forum and Hookah.org/blog I think /forum/ and /blog/ are easier for users but am not sure how much adding the word hookah helps with SEO.
Technical SEO | | Heydarian0 -
Multi-Word-Keyphrase in domain name wo/ or with dashes?
SEO Gurus, There seems to be a tendency that whenever you need to optimize a project for a multi-word key phrase, lets say for example "hostels in boston" SEOs see it as a best practice to refelct the key phrase in the domain without dashes yet when being used in a directory/page name context dashers are being used? Does anyone have any experience to share on this topic what works better? From my experience using dashes has been quite successful in the past but I am questioning this approach for a new project I am about to start. To clarify the question, in your eyes what would work better for the keyphrase "hotels in boston" www.hotelsinboston.com www.hotels-in-boston.com Thanks /Thomas
Technical SEO | | tomypro0