Website with only a portion being 'mobile friendly' -- what to tell Google?
-
I have a website for desktop that does a lot of things, and have converted part of it do show pages in a mobile friendly format based on the users device. Not responsive design, but actual diff code with different formatting by mobile vs desktop--but each still share the same page url name. Google allows this approach.
The mobile-friendly part of the site is not as extensive as desktop, so there are pages that apply to the desktop but not for mobile. So the functionality is limited some for mobile devices, and therefore some pages should only be indexed for desktop users.
How should that page be handled for Google crawlers? If it is given a 404 not found for their mobile bot will Google properly still crawl it for the desktop, or will Google see that the url was flagged as 'not found' and not crawl it for the desktop?
I asked a similar question yest, but it was not stated clearly. Thanks,Ted
-
Hi Giovatto,
Thanks for your thoughts. I had thought that too, but it looks to me like while it crawls both, it indexes only the desktop. I think it crawls the mobile to see what else mobile links to, but that the main purpose is to see if the pages render well for mobile. Here's my otherr thread that goes into this in more detail: http://moz.com/community/q/mobile-search-results-show-desktop-crawled-content
-
I'm not 100% sure but I believe Google handles crawls for mobile and desktop separately. In Google Webmaster Tools, under the Crawl Issues section, there are separate sections for Mobile and Desktop issues.
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
-
Does creating too many parent pages damage my website's SEO?
I need to know how to keep my website structure well organised and ensure Google still recognises the key pages. I work for a travel company which needs to give customers various pieces of information on our website and this needs to be well organised in terms of structure. For example, customers need information on airport pick-ups and drop-offs for each of our destinations but this isn't something that needs to rank on Google. Logically for site structure would be to create a parent page: thedragontrip.com/transfers/india Is creating parent pages for unimportant content a bad idea?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicolewretham1 -
Syntax: 'canonical' vs "canonical" (Apostrophes or Quotes) does it matter?
I have been working on a site and through all the tools (Screaming Frog & Moz Bar) I've used it recognizes the canonical, but does Google? This is the only site I've worked on that has apostrophes. rel='canonical' href='https://www.example.com'/> It's apostrophes vs quotes. Could this error in syntax be causing the canonical not to be recognized? rel="canonical"href="https://www.example.com"/>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ccox10 -
Getting into Google News, URL's & Sitemaps
Hello, I know that one of the 'technical requirements' to get into google news is that the URL's have unique numbers at the end, BUT, that requirement can be circumvented if you have a Google News Sitemap. I've purchased the Yoast Google News Sitemap (https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/news-seo/) BUT just found out that you cannot submit a google news Sitemap until you are accepted into google news. Thus, my question is that do you need to add the digits to the URL's temporarily until you get in and can submit a google news sitemap, OR, is it ok to apply without them and take care of the sitemap after you get in. If anyone has any other tips about getting into Google News that would be great! Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stacksnew0 -
Interlinking vs. 'orphaning' mobile page versions in a dynamic serving scenario
Hi there, I'd love to get the Moz community's take on this. We are working on setting up dynamic serving for mobile versions of our pages. During the process of planning the mobile version of a page, we identified a type of navigational links that, while useful enough for desktop visitors, we feel would not be as useful to mobile visitors. We would like to remove these from our mobile version of the page as part of offering a more streamlined mobile page. So we feel that we're making a fine decision with user experience in mind. On any single page, the number of links removed in the mobile version would be relatively few. The question is: is there any danger in “orphaning” the mobile versions of certain pages because links don’t exist pointing to those pages on our mobile pages? Is this a legitimate concern, or is it enough that none of the desktop versions of pages are orphaned? We were not sure whether it’s even possible, in Googlebot’s eyes, to orphan a mobile version of a page if we use dynamic serving and if there are no orphaned desktop versions of our pages. (We also plan to link to "full site" in the footer.) Thank you in advance for your help,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Eric_R
Eric0 -
Long term strategy to retain link 'goodness', I need some help!
Hi, I have a few questions around the best approach to retain as much link juice / authority from transitioning multiple domains into 1 single domain over the next year or so. I have 2 similar websites (www.brandA.co.uk and www.brandB.co.uk) which I need to transition to a new website (www.brandC.co.uk) over the next 2 years. Both A&B are established and have there own brand value, brand C will be a new website. I need to start introducing the brand from website C onto A&B straight away and then eventually drop the brands from A&B and just be left with C. One idea I am considering is: www.brandA.co.uk becomes brandA.brandC.co.uk (brandA sits as a subdomain on brandC website) Ultimately over time I would drop the subdomain (brandA) and just be left with www.brandC.co.uk The other option is: www.brandA.co.uk becomes brandC.co.uk/brandA...with the same ultimate aim as above. In both above case the same would be done for brandB, either becoming a subdomain of a folder on brandC website What I need to know is what is the best way to first pass any SEO goodness from the websites for brandA and brandB to the intermediate solution of either brandA.brandC.co.uk or brandC.co.uk/brandA (I see this intermediate solution being in place for approx 2 years). And then how to transition the intermediate solution into just having brandC.co.uk Which solution will aid growing the SEO goodness on the final brandC.co.uk website? Does google see subdomains as part of the main domain and thus the main domain will benefit from any links going to the subdomain or is it better to always use /folders as google sees these as more part of one website? ...or is there another option that I haven't considered? I know it's rater confusing so please give me a shout if you want anymore info. Thanks James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cewe0 -
Best solutions when homepage won't rank in Google?
My homepage (www.LeatherHideStore.com) will not rank for my keywords in Google - with Google mostly pulling product pages and some categories for serp results. In contrast, my homepage consistently shows for Yahoo and Bing with exceptions where a category is a better match for the keyword. In other words, it is working exactly as it should in Yahoo and Bing. After a year of this frustration I just upgraded to a new site on Magento Community and surprise, the same problem! The SEO moz analyzer has flagged significant duplicate content issues which I think is at the heart of my problem. I have asked my developer to address these but let's just say that customer service is not his forte. I am even starting to doubt he knows what to do although the site appears is well done. Given that it is a brand new site and duplicate content in Magento is to be expected (from what I have now read), I am deeply discouraged that my developer did not or could not plan for this so here I am again! Can anyone give me guidance on what to do? I have read a lot about canonicalization and it seems complicated especially if you have 1000 duplicate page titles. I have seen that there are some extensions (i.e. Ultimate SEO Suite by aheadWorks) for Magento that claim to be able to solve duplicate content problems but I am really just grasping at straws and do not have the confidence or skills to implement this on my own. Can anyone please help? Thanks! Hunter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | leatherhidestore0 -
Splitting one Website into 2 Different New Websites with 301 redirects, help?
Here's the deal. My website stbands.com does fairly well. The only issue it is facing a long term branding crisis. It sells custom products and sporting goods. We decided that we want to make a sporting goods website for the retail stuff and then a custom site only focusing on the custom stuff. One website transformed and broken into 2 new ones, with two new brand names. The way we are thinking about doing this is doing a lot of 301 redirects, but what do we do with the homepage (stbands.com) and what is the best practice to make sure we don't lose traffic to the categories, etc.? Which new website do we 301 the homepage to? It's rough because for some keywords we rank 3 or 4 times on the first page. Scary times, but something must be done for the long term. Any advise is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance. We are set for a busy next few months 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hyrule0 -
In order to improve SEO with silos'urls, should i move my posts from blog directory to pages'directories ?
Now, my website is like this: myurl.com/blog/category1/mypost.html myurl.com/category1/mypage.html So I use silos urls. I'd like to improve my ranking a little bit more. Is it better to change my urls like this: myurl.com/category1/blog/mypost.html or maybe myurl.com/category1/mypost.html myurl.com/category1/mypage.html Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Max840