Is there an issue if we show our old mobile site to Google & new site to users
-
Hi,
We have our existing mobile site that contains interlinking in footer & content and new mobile site that does not have interlinking. We will show existing mobile site to google crawler & new mobile site to users. Will this be taken as black hat by Google.
The mobile site & desktop site will have same url across devices & browsers.
Regards
-
If you serve a different content to the crawler, that's cloaking and you will face the wrath of google (de-indexing).
If you serve different content based on user-agent/screen-width etc... It should not de-index you for cloaking.
Google has very precise instructions on what a site owner should do in your case, and serving different html and css based on user-agent is perfectly fine, as long as you follow their instructions on how to supply google crawler additional information through http headers.
-
Hi Guys,
Thanks for your valuable input however our mobile sites(both old & new mobile site) & desktop site will have same url across devices & browsers. The only difference is of content & design on old and new mobile site. Will this still be considered as black hat.
Regards
-
Based on personal experience I can confirm what Laura said, google crawler is extremely skilled at recognizing cloaking and it's very aggressive at penalizing websites which does cloak content.
-
If you have a new mobile site, best practice is to 301 redirect the old site to the new site. If you do that, the value of your links will pass to the new mobile site which will help you maintain your rankings. Laura is correct, what you are proposing is black hat and very risky.
-
This is definitely a violation of Google Webmaster Guidelines, and I would certainly consider it a black hat tactic. You risk doing more harm than good.
This is what Google has to say about it here:
It's a violation of Google Webmaster Guidelines to redirect a user to a different page with the intent to display content other than what was made available to the search engine crawler.
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
-
Toggle Tabs on pages - How to present information to users
Hi all, I can use some help with SEO/UX related question I have got. I have a client who has some toggel tabs on its website. Is there a way to display the relevant information from these toggle tabs when a user lands on the page instead of having the same toggle tab show for whenever a user reaches the page? What I am trying to understand is that if a user searched for "vitamin C benefit" (lets say) in Google and then clicks on the link, the user is presented with the "benefits" tab on the page instead of "side effects" tab. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks
Web Design | | Malika1
Malika0 -
Dealing with the impending Google mobile compliance update - is bMobilized any good as a temporary measure?
We've been caught a bit off guard with the upcoming Google mobile compliance issue and received the warnings in webmasters about fixing mobile usability issues. It will still be some time before we can have the site re-coded as responsive. I have stumbled upon a converter tool (which turns any site into one that's mobile friendly) called bMobilized, which essentially turns your site into one that's mobile friendly. Have you used bMobilized? Is it a safe idea to use this service temporarily until our new responsive site is ready in a few months? Do you have any suggestions for temporarily getting around the mobile compliance issue while our new responsive site is being built? Thanks
Web Design | | Martin_S0 -
Many errors from previous ecommerce site. Domain is now just a localized wordpress site.
Many errors from previous ecommerce site. Do I need to redirect every single page that no longer exists at this domain? loveyourcabinets.com used to be loveyourkitchenandbath.com but we have since changed course. We want loveyourkitchenandbath.com to be our local site on Long Island and NYC. Loveyourcabinets.com will be an ecommerce project that I'll be revamping in the coming months. I think Moz as well as Google still has all of the old ecommerce pages indexed. And of course, Moz is shooting me a bunch of error all regarding pages from the ecommerce site that used to be on loveyourkitchenandbath.com. Any thoughts? Commentary? Thx
Web Design | | loveyourkitchen0 -
301 Redirect from Old Domain to New Domain
I am building a new website and I plan to 301 Redirect my Old Domain (olddomain.com) to a brand new Domain (newdomain.com) in the upcoming months. To do this I was planning to update the htaccess file on both the old and new domains. The htaccess file on the old domain would look to 301 redirect all pages on the old domain to the new domain. The htaccess file on the new domain would detail any specific URL redirects I want to implement (ie. olddomain.com/EXAMPLE/TEST will redirect to newdomain/TEST) - this will ensure link equity is retained and bounce rates are kept at a lower level. Does this sound like the right approach? Also, what do I need to do with the old domain going forward? Do I need to keep this forever in order for the 301 redirect to work or can I eventually just forward the domain to the new one permanently?
Web Design | | DHS_SH0 -
Does Google penalise for alot of advertising on your site?
I look after the search side of a decorating website on which we carry a large amount of advertising from external brands as that is our business model. Do you know if we would get penalised for having too much advertising - would it be deemed to affect the user experience? Many thanks for your help on this.
Web Design | | Pday0 -
Best way to add Google Analytics to a Joomla!
I am having difficulties installing (and getting it to work) google analytics to Joomla! 2.5.8 site. I have it working on some sites but then not on others even though I have installed it the same. Is there a recommended or easy way to do this that works?
Web Design | | Atlanta-SMO1 -
Best Way To Have HD Videos On Site That Will Work On Mobile Devices
Hi, I hope someone can help me with this. I am working on a site for a client who works at a video production company. They want to have a fair few HD videos on there site but also for the site and videos to be viewable on mobile devices. I have got a responsive wordpress theme and the site is beginning to take shape. I am wondering however how I can best get the videos to display on mobile devices while maintaining a good load speed. Until now I have been using amazon S3 which stores and feeds the videos and I use Easyvideoplayer to embed the videos. The problem is they do not appear to show up from mobile devices when using wordpress. can anyone suggest the best way for me to still feed the videos from S3 but get them to display on mobile devices. oh, they are private videos so they cannot be placed on youtube.
Web Design | | jensonseo0 -
META Description Not Showing Up On Google
Hi, I have noticed recently that for my highest ranking keyword on Google United Kingdom, the meta description (that has not changed for several months and always used to be displayed when someone searched for this keyword) now only shows the first couple of words. Also, instead of the rest of the Meta Description there is a list of items that I offer for sale all squashed together with their individual prices. I am the only company on page one of Google who's impression looks like this and I think it looks really unprofessional. Why has this happened and how do I change it? Any help is much appreciated
Web Design | | g3mmab0