What could go wrong? SEO on mobile site is different than desktop site.

[CFSSEO]

We have a desktop site that has been getting worked on over the year regarding improving SEO.  Since the mobile site is separate, the business decided to not spend the time to keep it updated and just turned it off.  So any mobile user that finds a link to us in search engines, goes to a desktop site that is not responsive.

Now that we're hearing Google is going to start incorporating mobile user friendliness into rankings, the business wants to turn the mobile site back on while we spend months making the desktop site responsive.  The mobile site basically has no SEO. The title tag is uniform across the site, etc.

How much will it hurt us to turn on that SEO horrid mobile site?  Or how much will it hurt us to not turn it on?

[bridget.randolph]

Hi,

Were you able to get the desktop site responsive? If not you may have seen an impact from the Mobile Friendliness Update in April (21st). In terms of whether it's preferable to have a good desktop site and no mobile version, or a mobile version which is not correctly set up for SEO, I'd lean towards suggesting that you do put the mobile version live for the short-term while you are working to make the desktop site responsive. At least this way your mobile users can have a better UX, and if you correctly implement the switchboard tags Google should be able to tell what the pages are for. Of course having a good SEO implementation on the mobile site should improve your mobile rankings, but failing that my suggestion would be to check first of all how your desktop-only site currently ranks on mobile, and then test what happens if you were to turn on the mobile version (or possibly even just a few key mobile-friendly pages). Another factor would be how likely your users are to be accessing your site on mobile - if it's a small percentage, you may have nothing to worry about; if a large percentage of your user base are likely to be on their phones, having a good mobile experience is going to be vital not only for mobile traffic but also for conversion.

That said, a well-optimized mobile site is just as valid an approach as responsive. Google recommend responsive simply because this is often the simplest way to implement a mobile friendly design; however they do not penalise sites that utilize the 'separate mobile site' approach as long as the two versions are accessible to all Googlebot user agents. And you can also utilize the switchboard tags to help explain to Google that the mobile version is linked to the desktop version. Either way, I'd strongly encourage you to get either a well-optimized mobile site or a responsive site as soon as possible, as it seems likely that mobile-friendliness will become increasingly necessary .

[adamxj2]

Hello!

I'm not too sure how much turning on a mobile site with no SEO value will impact your rankings when it comes to titles and such but my assumption is that it absolutely would. However some factors that will hurt your SEO in doing this is that Google prefers one URL, responsive websites, and fast load times. Having your site redirect makes it slow and shows multiple URLs. Even though Google is more concerned with sites having a mobile version (regardless of how it's done) the downside of using a secondary mobile template is something to consider.

Personally, if this were my business website…I would wait for the responsive site to be done. Even if it takes a bit of time you are better off going about things the right way. No shortcuts in SEO!

Hope that helps