Will there be problems in the future with a mobile dedicated site?
-
Just wanted everyone's input/opinion on this article that basically states Google will move to a solely mobile index in the future
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-vs-responsive/
That seems like it would negatively impact sites that have a separate URL for their mobile site. In this particular case I'm talking about... the mobile site URL is this layout: www.site.com/MobileView/MobileHome.aspx
Any thoughts/input would be enormously appreciated.
-
Thanks. I was concerned about the URL because I've read several articles that state adaptive and responsive designs use the same URL whereas mobile dedicated is a different url, usually a subdomain of the root domain. The developers are telling me we have an "adaptive design", but the mobile site is a subdoman setup, where the URL structure for the homepage, some navigational pages and search are different than the desktop site.
If you go to a webpage on a mobile phone and it redirects you to a subdomain with a mobile setup, that sounds mobile dedicated to me, and not "adaptive".... but maybe I am having a hard time grasping the true definition of adaptive.
http://www.clickseed.com/responsive-design-vs-separate-mobile-site-vs-dynamic-serving/
-
A page that is responsive/adaptive is based on that page and the design elements, not the URL. If the content is the same than yes you should point a canonical tag back to the main version for the mobile experience.
Pretty good thread on it here on Moz from a while back:
https://moz.com/community/q/how-to-use-canonical-with-mobile-site-to-main-site
-
Thank you for your input. Does it make a difference if the mobile URL is actually within the site like I stated above? i.e. www.site.com/MobileView/MobileHome.aspx.
My developers are telling me are design is more like "adaptive", but can that be the case when the url is not the exact same?
Also, what are your thoughts on adding a canonical tag on the mobile site?
Thanks again!
-
While Google has been reluctant to just come right out and say "Responsive is the way to go", they've dropped enough hints to make it fairly obvious that's what they want you to do. It makes sense - provide the same content to mobile users as you do desktop so it's accessible from anywhere. And the simplicity of it allows Google to efficiently crawl the site.
You're likely to realize greater efficiency by moving to a responsive design, which in turn will allow you to improve rankings more expediently. If SEO is a concern, go responsive and ditch the worry.
-
I would have concerns about a separate URL structure. While it may be a longer term plan, it's probably wise to start mapping out your next site and how you can get to a single URL structure regardless of device.
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
-
Unique content but exactly the same graphical layout - a problem?
Hello, I have a coaching website at www.bobweikel.com I want to make a second coaching website with the same exact wordpress theme, totally identical except a slightly different logo image. Everything the same. The only difference is that all the content will be unique on the new site. Does it matter to Google that the graphics are absolutely identical? I assume it's fine, I just am making sure.
Web Design | | BobGW0 -
Metro style design for a new eCommerce Platform: will it survive?
Hello, While developing eCommerce solution for building webstores in WordPress, our team decided to use metro style design for our dashboard. Could you check the Dashboard screenshot please and discuss several questions with me: How do you think, is it a good idea to use this kind of style? Do you think if there are many people who hate it?:) Should we offer more dashboard designs that can be changed through admin area (may be to offer a standard WP design) or this style will be enough for the start? Thank you very much! Yaros, GosuSell 001_dashboard.jpg
Web Design | | GosuSell0 -
I need help with international SEO for two sites?
I'll try to keep this clear... I am working with an company based in Germany, they own company.com/de and company.com/en, and that's how they are currently structuring their domains. They also own companyusa.com that they really want to show up in USA only. They want to keep company.com/en for England/english speaking Europe and company.com/de for their German audience in Germany. They are wanting us to optimize/SEO for companyusa.com, and they want that URL to show up as the top google search in the USA for their "company" keyword. What is showing up now is www.company.com/en 1st in Google because it's been around longer and it has more domain authority. What is the best practice for us optimize companyusa.com so that it is the top dog in the USA while not messing up the other domains? Should we merge? Subfolders all around? Thanks for all the input.
Web Design | | Rocket.Fuel0 -
Hey on some of my report cards its saying im not using rel canonical correctly how do i change this on my site?
on some of my report cards its saying certain things featured on my services page are actually linking to my blog or something. and its saying im not using rel canonical correctly. can you help me out?
Web Design | | ClearVisionDesign0 -
Thoughts on my site structure? (And a quick thank you!)
I've learned a lot through this site (and the community built around it) about everything SEO related. It's been extremely helpful in helping us help others to learn that all people (even those with a "disability") deserve respect and integrity. (Wow, that's a lot of helps!) So I wanted to give a quick thanks to everyone on this site who has helped, supported, and encouraged us. We really appreciate it. One thing I've been trying to do on my site is look at my categories and over all site structure. I've pruned a lot of things from the menu bar; pruned away and tightened up the categories, and even rearranged the navigation of the site. As you can see, I have several drop down categories up top. I wanted to see if I could get some feedback on how what I'm doing looks thus far, specifically as it relates to my categories / menus / navigation. Although any feedback you'd like to provide would be more than appreciated. One thing I'm curious about (and not sure how to tackle it) is regarding the top most item in the main menus. For instance you'll see I have a top level category called "Down Syndrome Resources" which takes them to all of the posts in that category. Under that, there is a drop down menus that gives them other categories, and even some pages that fall under the topic of Down syndrome resources. I'm not sure if people would know the top most item is a link, or just look at the ones below it. (If that makes sense.) (On a side note I have therapy as a category as well as parenting, the truth is those could all be sub-categories I guess since everything on my site pretty much could fall under "down syndrome resources." Maybe this is a huge FAIL I made when setting up my categories.) I'm also not sure if I should use some sub-categories as well. For instance I have a main category for Therapy. Under that I have posts about speech therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy. Right now they are all grouped into therapy. Do you think I should use sub-categories on those 3 terms, leave as is, or perhaps another option? Another question I have is regarding landing pages. It seems like I need to have a landing page for my top "key words." For example therapy. Now if you visit my /therapy you get the category index page, not a "landing page." Same would go for the sub-categories if I were to create them. So I'm not sure if I should make a new post or page naming it something else (maybe "Down syndrome therapy" another named "Down-syndrome-physical-therapy" etc) or something else. (Although therapy isn't really the keyword I want to rank for, I'm thinking more along the lines of children therapy, pediatric therapy, therapy for children with Down syndrome, etc. So maybe I need to rename my categories? I was going for shorter names, so I very well may have done this incorrectly.) All of these questions are things I'm not to sure about, so I'd appreciate any feedback or advice you can give me. And since I'm learning, I could be doing things wrong that I don't even know to ask. So feel free to tell me what you see that's wrong, you won't hurt my feelings. I promise. 🙂 Thanks in advance.
Web Design | | NoahsDad0 -
Mobile Sitemap for Site with Media Queries
I'm doing SEO for a site. It uses Media Queries and the CSS to automatically resize the site for the screen size in use. I.e. the site detects the screen size of say an iPhone and the CSS knows which elements to hide for that screen size and still make it look good. This is great because it will automatically cut down the content to display nicely on small screens - obviating the need for a separate mobile site. What kind of sitemap should be generated since the urls are for desktop and mobile use? Yoast (sweet SEO) said it should have both regular and mobile style sitemap to get both the regular and mobile bots to visit, but didn't elaborate on how that sitemap should look. Do you have a recommendation for how exactly the sitemap should look? Should the sitemap have the urls all twice, i.e. once regular and once with the mobile indicator?
Web Design | | GregoryHaze1 -
I have a question about converting a flash site to word press
We're changing one of our site to word press from flash and the old site had no content, so everything is going to be different. Should we try to match the page names and small amount of content and large amount of meta tags for now and slowly change them, or is it alright to change everything right now? The site has good ranking and I don't want to mess it up.
Web Design | | allstatetransmission0 -
Setup of three major retail sites.. need advice.
I recently have taken a new position responsible for three large national retail sites which are all owned by one parent organization. Through a series of acquisitions, these three major brands have been brought under one umbrella and a brand consolidation is likely not to happen within the next 2-4 years. I have a number of questions I’m hoping to get some feedback on, but first a little more background is necessary. A year ago (before my time) the three sites were over-hauled, but were designed to use one common custom CMS and all of the navigation and nearly all the content is the same (with some exceptions, such as tags, url, etc.). All of the brands have identical products and services; however, each one services a different demographic in the US. The design was intended for ease of management, but is terrible for seo. Additionally, without the geographic reference, they all compete for the same keywords. They have now begun a very large ecommerce project utilizing an ATG platform. The initial direction is to use one platform for all three brands, but keep them on separate domains and with the use of basic switching, replace nominal content such as logos and references of the brands for each of the domains. I’m concerned with this approach and would like to hear your feedback.. When optimizing a page for one keyword set, are they likely to be filtered due to dup content? The argument that management has is that all three current sites rank very well for one keyword on all three sites. They feel it won’t be an issue due to this. One option, that is currently still available, is to tri-band one ecommerce site, but it would have to be on an entirely new domain. The other three domains are very well established and are PR6s. Management, and even I, is afraid to abandon these other domains, but having a single domain would allow us to have unique content and really leverage all efforts to one domain. Thoughts? Any knowledge or thoughts what kind of impact having three domains on one ATG platform will be? Thanks much! John If you feel it will help, please message me and I can share the urls... Also, how would you handle a company blog in this case?
Web Design | | kavaliauskas0