Do mobile and desktop sites that pull content from the same source count as duplicate content?
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We are about to launch a mobile site that pulls content from the same CMS, including metadata. They both have different top-level domains, however (www.abcd.com and www.m.abcd.com). How will this affect us in terms of search engine ranking?
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Correct.
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Thanks Michael. To be clear, this means that the desktop will only have rel= alternate(pointing to mobile) and the mobile will only have rel=canonical(pointing to desktop)?
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Be sure you follow the best practices outlined here for separate mobile sites. In short, you want the desktop pages to have a rel alternate tag pointing at the mobile equivalent, and the mobile pages having their rel canonical pointing at the desktop equivalents.
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If you are using a CMS, Content Management System, think of it as a database. When someone hits your website the CMS looks into its files and serves up the information to the browser, which is different than the older static websites. A true CMS will be able to determine what browser/device the individual is viewing from and then serve up the appropriate information.
If you have two separate domains however you may need to tell Google what's going on, i.e rel=”canonical”. Not doing so may run trigger some duplicate content issues. However, having two different websites is perfectly acceptable by Google, just make sure you have the proper rel=”canonical” tags and you should be ok.
This one one of the benefits to Responsive templates within a CMS. It allows you to have one set of content, that alters depending on the browsing device.
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Does the www version redirect to the m. version based on device?
In my opinion, it will not have too much of an effect because you are telling the bots that the m. version is the mobile version of your site and it is expected to have the same content as the desktop version.
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