Mobile SEO best practices : Should my mobile website be located at m.domain.com or domain.com/mobile?
-
I'd like to know if there's any difference between using m.domain.com/pages or domain.com/mobile/pages for a mobile website? Which one is better? Why? Does Google treat the two differently? As you can see, I'm new to this! This is my first time working on a mobile website, so any links/resources would be highly appreciated. Thanks!
-
As Collin already states: this is just part of the regular old discussion about 1) subdirectory, 2) subdomain or 3) different domain. So SEO wise you should think about that. But also, you should think about how your desktop version of the website related to the (tablet?) mobile version of the website. There's multiple approaches:
- Responsive design (all on the same domain, using the same URL's)
- Separate mobile website and desktop website
- Mobile website on subdomain (m.blaa.com)
- Mobile website on separate domain
In order to help you choose, see below:
Responsive design vs. mobile website
For regular websites using responsive design is a good solution. Except for the case in which the HTML and assets are quite large for a mobile device to load. In that case I always prefer to use a mobile version of the website on a subdomain.
I believe this is the best solution for high traffic websites which need to show quite some content per page.
-
I think it is better to use media queries and JavaScript on the same domain rather than using a subdomain. It makes efforts with SEO, site maintenance, content updates etc etc so much more efficient.
-
Even with proper rel=canonicals in place, there's still an issue of having multiple urls and having links and social signals go to two different urls with the same content rather than just one url.
I'd pick a single URL for all content. Mobile visitors should received optimized pages via responsive or adaptive design. I do it via user-agent detection, and I serve optimized versions to either desktops, tablets or phones using the 'same url'.
-
In short, they each have their own benefits
- m.domain.com lives in it's own world and is easier to make sweeping changes to and such
- domain.com/mobile leverages the existing strength of your domain
If you'd like to read more on it, here's an article that explains it a little more in depth... I won't bother just re-stating it all here.
http://plussearchmarketing.com/search/2012/03/mobile-urls-for-seo/
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
-
Disavow or not? Negative SEO
Since last November we have been receiving a lot of low quality backlinks from over 700 websites. It looks like one of our pages from our website has been copied with the links being kept as they are. I have left a link to an example of this here: https://goo.gl/eWQODJ Please note, all examples seem to be copied in the same way. We have also started seeing a decrease in the amount of organic traffic (Analytics Picture), As you can see the decrease is not yet so drastically high, but it is still a decrease and this is the third consecutive month we have seen this decrease. Do you think it is worth it to use Disavow tool for all of these bad link or not? uuuLt
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Tiedemann_Anselm1 -
Sub Domain rel=canonical to Main Domain
Just a quick one, i have the following example scenario. Main Domain: http://www.test.com Sub Domain: http://sub.test.com What I am wondering is I can add onto the sub domain a rel=canonical to the main domain. I dont want to de-index the whole sub domain just a few pages are duplicated from the main site. Is it easier to de-index the individual sub domain pages or add the rel=canonical back to the main domain. Much appreciated Joseph
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Joseph-Vodafone0 -
Best practice to preserve the link juice to internal pages from expired domain?
This question relates to setting up an expired domain, that already has quality links, including deep links to internal pages. Since the new site structure will be different, what's the best practice to preserve the link juice to these internal pages? Export all the internal pages linked to using majestic Seo/ ahrefs etc, and set these pages previously linked to? Or 301 redirect these pages to home page? I heard there's a Wordpress plugin that 301 redirects all the 404 errors successfully preserving all the potential link juice.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | adorninvitations0 -
Is horizontal hashtag linking between 4 different information text pages with a canonical tag to the URL with no hashtag, a White Hat SEO practice?
Hey guys, I need help. hope it is a simple question : if I have horizontal 4 text pages which you move between through hashtag links, while staying on the same page in user experience, can I canonical tag the URL free of hashtags as the canonical page URL ? is this white hat acceptable practice? and will this help "Adding the Value", search queries, and therefore rank power to the canonical URL in this case? hoping for your answers. Best Regards, and thanks in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Muhammad_Jabali0 -
Do you choose PA/DA over PR when purchasing expiring domains?
Hey guys, So a lot has been said about private blog network. I have but only 1 question: Do you choose PA/DA over PR when purchasing expiring domains or PR is most critical? Thanks a lot!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | nicenike0 -
competitor sites link to a considerable amount of irrelevant sites/nonsense sites that seem to score high with regard to domain authority
According to my recent SEOmoz links analysis, my competitor sites link to a considerable amount of irrelevant sites/nonsense sites that seem to score high with regard to domain authority... e.g. wedding site linking to a transportation attorney's website. Aother competitor site has an overall of 2 million links, most of which are seemingly questionable index sites or forums to which registration is unattainable. I recently created a 301 redirect, and my external links have yet to be updated to my new domain name in SEOmoz. Yet, by comparing my previous domain authority rank with those of the said competitor sites, the “delta” is relatively marginal. The SEOmoz rank is 21 whereas the SEOmoz ranks of two competitor sites 30 and 33 respectively. The problem is, however, is to secure a good SERP for the most relevant terms with Google… My Google pagerank was “3” prior to the 301 redirect. I worked quite intensively so as to receive a pagerank only to discover that it had no affect at all on the SERP. Therefore, I took a calculated risk in changing to a domain name that translates from non-latin characters, as the site age is marginal, and my educated guess is that the PR should rebound within 4 weeks, however, I would like to know as to whether there is a way to transfer the pagerank to the new domain… Does anyone have any insight as to how to go about and handling this issue?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | eranariel0 -
Penalised by Google - Should I Redirect to a new domain?
Last month my rankings dropped a couple of pages on Google and am no longer receiving as many visits from Google as I used to. It's coming up to summer which is the time my business naturally picks up yet I can't fix this problem. I have a crazy idea of redirecting my established site onto a new domain in hopes that the penalty would be removed. I have tried removing any manipulative links yet my ranking are not coming back. Anyone had success in redirecting to a new domain?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | penn730 -
Thought on optimising the perfect keyword location link
My site works a bit like a directory, so say I have a page called "Ice Cream Vendors" - on that page I would talk a bit about Ice Cream Vendors, then I will have a list of Ice Cream Vendor Locations. My list of locations can be quite big depending on the product and the amount of locations they occur in - when you click a location, it goes to a page showing all "ICeCream Vendors" in that location. So Currently I will have a table on the page a bit like this: ICE CREAM VENDOR LOCATIONS
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | James77
New York
Miami
Las Vegas This is all perfectly nice, simple and usable - BUT it is not producing perfect keyword links - for perfect keyword links the list should be like this: ICE CREAM VENDOR LOCATIONS
New York Ice Cream Vendors
Miami Ice Cream Vendors
Las Vegas Ice Cream Vendors Now I have my perfect anchor links - BUT it looks rediculous and is NOT user friendly. So What do I do?
1/. Build it for users and not have perfect anchor links, and loose in SEO?
2/. Build a perfect SEO links and make it less usable and looking spammy? OR 3/. Deliver the search engine the perfect SEO links, and the user the userfriendly version? In this I mean I could do the following:
SE's (and screen readers I think would see):
ICE CREAM VENDOR LOCATIONS
New York Ice Cream Vendors
Miami Ice Cream Vendors
Las Vegas Ice Cream Vendors Users would See
ICE CREAM VENDOR LOCATIONS
New York
Miami
Las Vegas Now in my view I am doing nothing wrong - I am mearly giving the user the most userfriendly version and I am giving the SE more information on the link, that the user doesn't need. So - In my view I am doing something that is honest - but what are your thoughts?? Has anyone tried to do this? Thanks0