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
-
My site auto redirects http to https. This is causing redirect chains. What can I do?
I noticed that Moz flags a lot of redirect chain issues on my site. I realized that this is mostly because the site automatically redirects http to https, and when I create a new URL (when a URL changes, for example) it is automatically flagged as a chain. Example: http://www.example-link Auto directs to: https://www.example-link Which is then redirected to: https://www.example-link-changed (when the address actually changes) I don't seem to have any control over changing where the initial http redirect goes. Any advice on fixing this problem?
On-Page Optimization | | baystatemarketing0 -
What's the best SEO tactics when you have a dedicated web address pointing to a page on a different site?
Hope someone can help with a question I've got about sorting out some duplicate content issues. To simplify the question, imagine there is a website a.com which has a page a.com/newslettersignup. In addition to the a.com domain, there is also a different web address, ashortcut.com, which points to a.com/newslettersignup. ashortcut.com is the web address that is advertised in marketing material etc. So what is the best way then to tell Google etc. that ashortcut.com is the preferred URL for the page which sits at a.com/newslettersignup? The advice I've read about the canonical tag, for example, doesn't cover this exact scenario so although it can support cross-domain information, I'm not sure if that's the best route to follow. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Nobody15755058948220 -
Need SEO Advice for different languages and How to optimize the page
Hello. Currently we have an ecommerce site that sells shoes online in France. The site is in English. Say the keyword is shoes and our page is example.com/shoes it;s perfectly fine to optimize that page for keyword of "shoes". Now, what about french keyword of shoes "chaussures" ? How do i optimize it? Should i create a different page or just edit the same page with keyword of "chaussures" in title tag etc? What is the best way to go about doing this? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | WayneRooney0 -
Paying someone for SEO help?
Moz has been very helpful but since my site was hit by Google Panda and I am getting very little organic traffic, I am thinking about having someone who really knows SEO take a look and give me some help. However, I have no idea how to find someone reputable. Any advice for hiring someone for SEO help (on a budget?)
On-Page Optimization | | 2bloggers0 -
How do I do a 301 Redirect in Wordpress
I have several pages that are showing up as "duplicate" on my Wordpress based site based upon the structure of site. I was wondering how to do a 301 redirect for these pages
On-Page Optimization | | SteveSweat0 -
Getting Google to provide a different URL in SERP
For one of my client’s sites, I have several keywords that are ranking in the top 5 positions. However, they have a high bounce rate. I believe this is because Google is delivering a different URL than the page we have optimized for the keyword. Any suggestions on ways I can get Google to present our preferred page?
On-Page Optimization | | TopFloor0 -
Two different keywords - one URL
We're new to SEO, but have two keywords that are really not quite the same, but Google has targeted the same URL for us ... which means that SEO Moz is recommending we optimize the same URL, for opposite keywords (using the on page SEO). For example, the keywords (these aren't our keywords) of say, "beer brewing" and "ways to make beer for small breweries" are both pointing at our home page. The on page SEO is showing that "beer brewing" is a rank of say, a google ranking of 9. However, "ways to ..." is a google ranking of 47. So ... what am I supposed to do now? Do I rewrite the page to have "ways to ..." more prominent? I cannot really have the title and h1's include both ... What do I do now? We have about 3 or 4 of these "pairs". -- Anthony
On-Page Optimization | | apresley0
