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
-
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 -
Going mobile: Responsive or different mobile version?
Going mobile: Responsive or different mobile version?
Web Design | | FCRMediaLietuva
Which one should we choose? Should we do responsive design or should we have a different mobile version and go m.domain.com ? http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2253965/3-reasons-why-responsive-web-design-is-the-best-option-for-your-mobile-seo-strategy I just read this article. It seems that the responsive design is OK, but the first comment kills that opinion and says that it is pretty hard to make it OK. 🙂 So I need more opinions? What is best for people and for SEO?0 -
Mobile and SEO
We are in the process of building a responsive version of our site for mobile users (currently about 20% of total traffic). What are the most important SEO considerations we should be aware of when it comes to this kind of project? Thanks
Web Design | | halloranc0 -
Is anyone here managing or doing SEO for a site using GoECart?
We are preparing to update/migrate to a new ecommerce platform. We are in the process of choosing right now. One of the things we know we want is faceted navigation, but I am well aware of the problems this presents for SEO. Are any of you amazing people here using, managing or have experience with GoECart? I am interested to know your feedback, particularly from an SEO viewpoint. Thanks in advance! Dana
Web Design | | danatanseo0 -
Sites went from page 1 to page 40 + in results
Hello all We are looking for any insight we can get as to why all (except 1) of our sites were effected very badly in the rankings by Google since the Panda updates. Several of our sites londonescape.com dublinescape.com and prague, paris, florence, delhi, dubai and a few others (all escape.com urls) have had major drop in their rankings. LondonEscape.net (now.com (changed after rank drop) ), was ranked between 4th & 6th but is now down around 400th and DelhiEscape.net and MunichEscape.com were both number 1 for several years for our main key words We also had two Stay sites number 1 , AmsterdamStay and NewYorkstay both .com ranked number 1 for years , NewYork has dropped to 10th place so far the Amsterdam site has not been effected. We are not really sure what we did wrong. MunichEscape and DelhiEcape should never have been page 1 sites ) just 5 pages and a click thru to main site WorldEscape) but we never did anything to make them number 1. London, NewYork and Amsterdam sites have had regular new content added, all is checked to make sure its original. **Since the rankings drop ** LondonEscape.com site We have redirected the.net to the .com url Added a mountain of new articles and content Redesigned the site / script Got a fair few links removed from sites, any with multiple links to us. A few I have not managed yet to get taken down. So far no result in increased rankings. We contacted Google but they informed us we have NOT had a manual ban imposed on us, we received NO mails from Google informing us we had done anything wrong. We were hoping it would be a 6 month ban but we are way past that now. Anyone any ideas ?
Web Design | | WorldEscape0 -
International SEO issues for multiple sites
We currently have 3 websites: oursite.co.uk oursite.fr oursite.ch We also own Oursite.com, and that URL currently redirects to Oursite.fr. We are considering a complete site redesign and a possible merge of the 3 sites. Assumptions: ** the 3 sites currently receive organic search traffic to varying degrees
Web Design | | darkgreenguy
** Oursite.ch is almost identical to Oursite.fr in terms of the site content
** Our target market is NOT the USA for English-language searches. It is the UK. With a re-design, we see our options as follows: Merge the 3 sites and make Oursite.com the "main site" and then have subfolders as follows: /uk /fr /ch Keep the 3 sites as they are. We see Option 1 as the best in terms of saving time when updating the site, and saving money paid to the site developers (1 site vs 3 sites). We see Option 2 as the best in terms of ability of the site to rank, as well as confidence of searchers when seeing our site in the search results (in other words, a person searching in France would be more likely to buy and/or submit a form on our site if they saw Oursite.fr vs Oursite.com/fr). I guess we're looking for some suggestions/guidance here. Are we missing any big issues? Does anyone have experience with an issue such as this? Thank you in advance...
-Shawn0 -
Will upgrading my dedicated server improve my site speed
hi, at the moment i am concerned about my site speed for www.in2town.co.uk My hosting company is tmd hosting and my package is Intel Atom 330 1MB L2 Cache 1.6GH $159/mo $189/month500GBStorage4GBRAM10TBBandwidthi am looking at increasing this to**$219/mo** $289/month500GBStorage6GBRAM10TBBandwidthcan anyone let me know if this will make a difference to my site speed please
Web Design | | ClaireH-1848860