Redirecting M Dot Mobile Website to Responsive Design Website Questions
-
Hi amazing Moz community
Couldn't find this question anywhere, and knew this was the place to ask!We are helping a client redirect an M Dot website to a Responsive Design website. We want to retain our mobile rankings for keywords. Three questions -
-
We should use 301 redirects from the M Dot website to the new website correct? (not 302s?)
-
How long does it take for Google to understand that we have launched a responsive website? Can we remove the 301 redirects after a few days (if the M Dot website interferes/breaks the new Responsive website)?
-
We have verified an account on Google Search Console for the M Dot website, along with a mobile sitemap that has been submitted and verified. What should we do with this M Dot GSC account? Just delete it? Or keep it and upload the NEW XML Sitemap with the new WWW links (because the website is responsive).
THANK YOU!
-
-
Hi Robert,
They don't hurt so leave them in place for some time. It might be quite some time before the index is completely as you want it to be. So just let the redirects to their thing just in case Google, Bing, etc keep indexing the old URL's.
Hope that helps.
Bas
-
Hi Bas, one more question from the client:
At what point do we remove the redirects that are in place now for on our regular site that send users to m-dot when they are on a mobile device?
- My answer would be "when the new website is live" Is that correct?
-
Hi Robert,
Pleasure to help!
Yes, that is what i would do. At least for a couple of days until you can see that Google has seen the permanent redirects.
Otherwise you might create duplicate content. Might. Not entirely sure.
Bas
-
Thank you very much, Bas. Appreciate it!
When you say "keep the old sitemap in place for quite sometime" are you referring to the mobile sitemap on the m-dot domain, even though the domain is going to be removed? Are you suggesting we keep the 301 in place for as long as possible?
Thanks!
-
Hi Robert,
1. Correct: use the permanent header code
2. Good question. I don't know that specific answer. I think that period depends on all kinds of factors. I would leave the old sitemap in place for quite some time. As long as you use the permanent header code you're ok.
3. Do not throw that away! just keep that login. You can also verify crawling errors, etc with this account.
Good luck with the migration!
Bas
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
-
Redirect Juice?
Hello all! I have a partner site that is linking their product page (step 1) to our product page (step 2) and then we instantly forward them to our shopping cart page (step 3) with that product added. Will my product page (step 2) get the SEO juice from our partners link (step 1) even though we instantly forward to our shopping cart page (step 3)? Curious about ways to technically do this correctly. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jamesmcd030 -
Where to point canonical for m-dot site in the wake of Mobile-First Indexing
My client currently use an m-dot URL for their mobile site and while conducting a technical audit for their web properties, we have noticed that their desktop is using a self-referencing rel="canonical" while their mobile m-dot has no rel="canonical" tags. While our initial recommendation is to point the mobile m-dot point to the desktop using a rel="canonical" and the desktop point to the mobile using a rel="alternative," there have been hesitations about mobile first indexing and canonical tags. If Google will use the m-dot for indexing purposes moving forward, is the progressive recommendation to have the desktop point to the m-dot using a rel="canonical" and the m-dot point to the desktop using a rel="alternative" or to maintain the initially stated recommendation?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Derek_Hawk0 -
If my website uses CDN does thousands of 301 redirect can harm the website performance?
Hi, If my website uses CDN does thousands of 301 redirect can harm the website performance? Thanks Roy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kadut1 -
Location in URLs question
Hi there, my company is a national theater news publisher. Quick question about a particular use case. When an editor publishes a story they can assign several discrete locations, allowing it to appear on each of those locations within our website. This article (http://www.theatermania.com/denver-theater/news/full-casting-if-then-tour-idina-menzel_74354.html), for example, appears in the Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Denver section. We force the author to choose a primary location from that list, which controls the location displayed in the URL. Is this a bad practice? I'm wondering if the fact that having 'Denver' in the URL is misleading and hurts SEO value, particularly since that article features several other cities.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheaterMania0 -
Mobile friendly - Sub domain after responsive?
My client has a mobile website (m.website.com) and is working on a responsive website. The site is already labeled "Mobile friendly" on the SERP and I was wondering if, when the site will be responsive, it would be worth it to redirect the subdomain or it would be safer to keep the subdomain and still redirect mobile users to it since we're already Mobile friendly (we would keep the rel alternate on the main domain and the rel canonical on mobile).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Digitics0 -
Site wide footer links vs. single link for websites we design
I’ve been running a web design business for the past 5 years, 90% or more of the websites we build have a “web design by” link in the footer which links back to us using just our brand name or the full “web design by brand name” anchor text. I’m fully aware that site-wide footer links arent doing me much good in terms of SEO, but what Im curious to know is could they be hurting me? More specifically I’m wondering if I should do anything about the existing links or change my ways for all new projects, currently we’re still rolling them out with the site-wide footer links. I know that all other things being equal (1 link from 10 domains > 10 links from 1 domain) but is (1 link from 10 domains > 100 links from 10 domains)? I’ve got a lot of branded anchor text, which balances out my exact match and partial match keyword anchors from other link building nicely. Another thing to consider is that we host many of our clients which means there are quite a few on the same server with a shared IP. Should I? 1.) Go back into as many of the sites as I can and remove the link from all pages except the home page or a decent PA sub page- keeping a single link from the domain. 2.) Leave all the old stuff alone but start using the single link method on new sites. 3.) Scratch the site credit and just insert an exact-match anchor link in the body of the home page and hide with with CSS like my top competitor seems to be doing quite successfully. (kidding of course.... but my competitor really is doing this.)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nbeske0 -
301 redirect
I have 2 websites, lets call them Website A and Website B. Website A is a commercial website, website B is a 7 years old blog. Website B has many natural, high quality BL, including some from Nytimes, etc. I want to integrate the blog (B) into the commercial website (A). The idea behind this thought is to compress the two websites, it is easier to have everything in one place. I will do this with 301 redirect via Webmaster tools, htaccess etc. The uRL structure will remain the same: eg: websiteB/post-title/ -> websiteA/post title What will happen with my quality BLs? Is there any chance to be penalized by Google? What will happen with the PR of the 2 sites? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasmin281 -
How would you optimise a news website?
I have been asked for advice on how to optimise a news website whose keywords, almost by definition, change every day according to the articles being written. How would you, for example, do SEO for the NYtimes.com? Great content and subsequent links I'm sure take care of themselves. Just onsite then? If so.... what?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seomasters0