Mobile Site Annotations

[Critical_Mass]

Our company has a complex mobile situation, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to implement bidirectional annotations and a mobile sitemap. Our mobile presence consists of three different "types" of mobile pages:

1. Most of our mobile pages are mobile-specific "m." pages where the URL is completely controlled via dynamic parameter paths, rather than static mobile URLs (because of the mobile template we're using). For example: http://m.example.com/?original_path=/directory/subdirectory. We have created vanity 301 redirects for the majority of these pages, that look like http://m.example.com/product that simply redirect to the previous URL.

2. Six one-off mobile pages that do have a static mobile URL, but are separate from the m. site above. These URLs look like http://www.example.com/product.mobile.html

3. Two responsively designed pages with a single URL for both mobile and desktop.

My questions are as follows:

1. Mobile sitemap: Should I include all three types of mobile pages in my mobile sitemap? Should I include all the individual dynamic parameter m. URLs like http://m.example.com/?original_path=/directory/subdirectory in the sitemap, or is that against Google's recommendations?

2. Bidirectional Annotations: We are unable to add the rel="canonical" tag to the m. URLs mentioned in section #1 above because we cannot add dynamic tags to the header of the mobile template. We can, however, add them to the .mobile.html pages. For the rel="alternate" tags on the desktop versions, though, is it correct to use the dynamic parameter URLs like http://m.example.com/?original_path=/directory/subdirectory as the mobile version target for the rel="alternate" tag? My initial thought is no, since they're dynamic parameter URLs. Is there even any benefit to doing this if we can't add the bidirectional rel="canonical" on those same m. dynamic URLs?

I'd be immensely grateful for any advice! Thank you so much!

[KristinaKledzik]

Yup, you've got it!

[Critical_Mass]

Thanks for the great advice, Kristina! I really appreciate it.

You raise a good point on the vanity vs. parameter URL risks. We primarily use these static 301 vanity URLs for ad campaigns and media buys, so we're not using them in any internal linking. The template we use for our mobile environment, called Kony, doesn't actually have "links" on the back end of the site the same way a desktop site would - they're more like buttons that load a specific set of content without using a unique, canonical URL for that content - this is why all of our mobile pages on this environment are parameter URLs based on the user path, not "real" URLs. Weird, I know!

I think that's an excellent idea to specify in Webmaster Tools that our mobile parameters determine our content, just so Google knows.

So just to confirm your recommendations around the mobile sitemap - we should create a single sitemap that includes the parameter URLs (http://m.example.com/?original_path=/directory/subdirectory) as well as the static .mobile.html pages (http://www.example.com/product.mobile.html)? There is no content overlap between the two environments. I assume we should not include the responsive design URLs, since they're not exclusively mobile URLs?

Thanks again!

[KristinaKledzik]

Hi Critical Mass,

Before I answer your direct questions, I think you're putting yourself in a tricky situation by creating vanity 301 redirects to those dynamic mobile URLs. If someone ever links to the mobile version of your page, they're going to use the URL with parameters, because that's the page they end up on. That means that all inbound links will point Google to your parameter URLs and all internal links will point to the static URLs you've created. Link equity will be split, and all pages will suffer for it.

It's true that Google understands static URLs a bit better than it understands URLs built with parameters, but it does understand that sometimes parameters define content. I recommend getting rid of those static URLs, then using Google Webmaster Tools to explicitly say, "these parameters define content." You can learn more about how to do this here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1235687?hl=en

Now, to answer your questions:

1. You should only include the URLs that you want Google to index. If you follow my recommendation above, this is now an easy question to answer.

2. Yes, use the rel="alternate" tag on your desktop pages! Like I said, Google understands that parameters can determine content. You want to connect the two pages as much as possible, even if you can't canonical back.

Hope this helps!

Kristina