Would an automatic redirect to itunes affect SEO?
-
We recently started working on a website and most of the work done so far is resolving onsite technical issues (duplicate content, duplicate titles, broken links, pagespeed, grammar, etc.). Everything done has been positive, but their position in SERPs has actually gone down. I'm having a look to see if anything I have done could have had a negative effect.
However, when visiting their website on a mobile device, it automatically redirects you to iTunes so that you can download their app. My first instinct is that this is a horrendous idea as it would result in a massive bounce rate which would be impossible to track. I have tried convincing them to do it differently, but this is how they want it. However, when googlebot visits the website as a mobile it returns an error. I'm fairly sure that this would have a negative effect on search results but I could do with a second opinion.
-
I'm going to endorse Andy's answer as well as adding one here. His link to Matt's video is what I would add, but I wanted to address the redirect affecting ranking. The redirect is basically ensuring that you won't show in results for mobile users. You need a page to rank to even attempt to rank. You are sending the signal now that itunes is the right page for users, so that page will rank. The redirect is most certainly impacting your performance mobile and desktop. iTunes has desktop accessible pages as well and you are pointing your authority to them.
Beyond that, there haven't been studies that I know of proving this just because it's a bad user experience on top of a bad search decision.
-
Here is something that might be worth showing them Mark. Matt Cutts was talking about this exact matter last month.
http://www.seroundtable.com/google-mobile-seo-desktop-18271.htmlThere doesn't appear to be a clear cut answer here - if there is one, Google aren't confirming one way or the other, but i would certainly be erring on the side of caution.
-Andy
-
Thanks guys.
I'm aware of the negative effect on user experience and I tried to convince them to replace the redirect with a banner, but they refused. If I has some evidence that suggested that having the direct was having an effect on SERPs and therefore the number of potential customers they attract then I might be able to convince them better.
I need a complete report telling them why they should reinstate their website on mobile devices and remove the redirect or they won't listen. Dreadful user experience is a start, but the website is now almost invisible in mobile SERPs which is a serious issue. However, I'm not sure if this would affect the desktop SERPs (although I know that user experience is taken into account).
-
Hi
I would have to agree with Andy in terms of user experience - what most sites I visit tend to do is to have a section at the top - which says download the app now, rather than taking u directly to the Apple Store - I would just bounce straight off, no way would I download an app without reviewing some of the content first.
You may also want to read: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2721217 I don't think you will be seen as sneaky redirect (unless Google classify Apple.com as spammy url) as they say if you are trying to deceive Google, but it probably not helping.
-
I would be more concerned about the impact on users. This is like visiting a site and being forwarded to those annoying games. A real pet hate of mine.
I would be tempted to show them this post from Google on sneaky redirects, as it falls into this category: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/webmaster-guidelines-for-sneaky.html
Anything that takes a user from an expected page to an unexpected one, is going to have a number of negative impacts.
The polite thing to do, is provide a "Download this app now" button that is easily seen.
-Andy
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
-
Redirecting a blog
We've acquired another company and want to redirect their soon-to-be-obsolete website to ours. It includes a blog with many blog posts. Should we: only 301 redirect the top level blog URL
Technical SEO | | Caro-O
try redirect individual blogs to blogs of a similar topic on our site (least practical I'm sure)
redirect all their individual posts to our main blog URL Thanks, Caro1 -
Redirect a 301 Redirect
Does any link juice get passed from a permanent redirect to a new 301 redirect? If so, are there any studies which indicate an estimated percentage?
Technical SEO | | RedCaffeine0 -
Does any one have experience with SEO and .NET using 301 redirects?
A while ago I altered some of the URL's of my website. Google now thinks that I have two duplicate pages (duplicate content), I have asked my third party web developers (Who use .NET and a custom built CMS system) to simply 301 redirect the old URL to the other. However, my web developers say the following: "Solving the problems by 301 permanent re directs are out of the question as this would create infinite loops. Likely to bring down our server." They also wont do a canonical, as they say there is only one page (but two URLs) Firstly, has any one heard of this before and do they think this is true? Also, does anyone have an alternative method of getting rid of the old URL? Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | CoGri0 -
Can anyone recommend an SEO friendly Joomla extension to use for SEO on an existing website?
Can anyone recommend an SEO friendly Joomla extension to use for SEO on an existing website? I have downloaded sh404sef but I don't want to change my URL's and make them longer than they are at the moment. Any ideas?
Technical SEO | | Karen_Dauncey0 -
Mobile redirection
Hi, What would be the best practice for mobile detection: Best practice for redirections Best practice for detection and inclusion of a front-end element inviting to a mobile version of the site I found this on www.W3C.org but it's from 2008 and I was wondering if any of you tried different approaches concerning mobile detection. Thanks! GaB
Technical SEO | | Pherogab0 -
Can I redirect a URL that has a # in it? How?
Hi there - My web developer is saying that I can't do a URL redirect with a "#" in it. Currently, the URL is actually an anchored link within a page (which the URL indicates with a #). I want to change the content to a new URL, but our website links internally to the old URL, so we would need to do a URL redirect (assume 301). Can you tell me if this is possible and how? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | sfecommerce0 -
Mobile SEO or Block Crawlers?
We're in the process of launching mobile versions of many of our brand sites and our ecommerce site and one of our partners suggested that we should block crawlers on the mobile view so it doesn't compete for the same keywords as the standard site (We will be automatically redirecting mobile handsets to the mobile site). Does this advice make sense? It seems counterintuitive to me.
Technical SEO | | BruceMillard0 -
Homepage display for seo
hi, Which is the best , seo speaking, about the homepage display with a CMS (joomla here). 1/ To display articles as "blog" and thus articles are always recent but not the same (chronological).. 2/ To display always a same article (just 1) but updated sometimes to times ? 3/ Both of them are good ? Tks a lot in advance..
Technical SEO | | mozllo0