Mobile URL parameter (Redirection to desktop)
-
Hello,
We have a parallel mobile website and recently we implemented a link pointing to the desktop website. This redirect is happening via a javascript code and results in a url followed by this paramenter: ?m=off
Example:
http://www.m.website.com redirects to:
http://www.website.com/?m=offQuestions:
- Will the "http://www.website.com/?m=off" be considered duplicate content with "http://www.website.com" since they both return the same content?
- Is there any possibility that Google will take into consideration the url ending in "/?m=off"? How should we treat this new url?
- The webmaster tools URL parameter configuration at the moment isn't experiencing problems but should we submit the parameter anyway in order not to be indexed or should we wait first and see the error response?
- In case we should submit this for removal... what's the best way to do it? Like this?
- Parameter: ?m=off
- Does this parameter change page content seen by the user? - doesn't affect page content
Any help is much appreciated.
Thank you! -
Hi again!
It's normal that you feature very similar or even, duplicate content through both your mobile and desktop Website versions, what it is fundamental though is that you use the rel alternate and canonical tags that I shared with you in my previous answer. I've just checked your site and you're not using them.
If you correctly add these tags in your mobile and desktop URLs as I described in my previous answer you shouldn't have any content duplication or cannibalization issues in Google's search results.
Thanks!
Aleyda
-
Thanks Aleyda, mobile website development is something new for and since we developed this in house, we are not sure if we have done the right thing, if we have duplicate content. Is there any way we can check for duplicate content? Could you take a look at our website and its mobile version and let us know what you think?
Thank you!
-
Hi there!
It's ok (and needed) in these circumstances to use a parameter in the URL since you cannot simply add a direct link otherwise your mobile users who select to switch to the desktop version will end-up in a redirection loop. What you can do to avoid any type of content duplication issues in this type of settings is:
- Add a link rel="alternate" tag in each of the desktop URLs referring to their specific mobile URL versions and a link rel="canonical" tag in all of the mobile URLs referring to their specific desktop URLS versions, as specified here by Google. Take a look at an example here
- Configure the appropriate canonical tags in your Desktop URLs as specified here by Google, so they always refer to their original URL versions (without parameters). This means that in http://www.website.com/?m=off you should add this canonical tag:```
pointing to its original URL version... and do this with every URL (referring to its own original URL version).
By doing this you won't have any content duplication issues. If you want to learn more about Mobile SEO take a look at the Webinar I did sometime ago in SEOmoz here and this post where I answer the most common Mobile SEO questions.
Thanks,
Aleyda
-
The page ending in ?m=off is non existent. We are using Joomla and such page does not exist and cannot be configured via canonical tags. Any other suggestion?
Thank you!
-
Query parameters can become indexed by Google and can lead to duplicate content. Just make sure that you are using the canonical tag in your header pointing to the non-query parameter page, that way Google will know to index the proper URL.
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
-
Redirects Advice Please
Hi All, I have been approached by someone to look at their website who has seen a rank drop over the last week of around 15 places. On a quick look at their website I have seen what I am imaging could be the culprit as I imagine it will be creating a re-direct loop. However, i am not 100% with these things so would like some others opinions.com They have a wordpress website. There home page lets say https://theirsite.com/ They have an internal page built for a search term https://www.theirsite.com/keyword In wordpress they have set that page in settings to be the homepage. However, I looked on their server and via htaccess they have a 301 redirect from https://www.theirsite.com/keyword to https://www.theirsite.com/ So the questions are: 1. Could this be creating a loop? 2. The redirect was placed around a week before the rank drop. Could this possibly be the cause of the drop? 3. I am assuming that removing the 301 from htaccess is recommended? Thanks in advance for any advice
Technical SEO | | DaleZon0 -
Switched from and HTTPS to HTTP. My home page is facing a redirect issue from the http to https. Should I no index the HTTP or find the redirect and delete it? Thank you
Switched from and HTTPS to HTTP. My home page is facing a redirect issue from the http to https. Should I no index the HTTP or find the redirect and delete it? Thank you
Technical SEO | | LandmarkRecovery20170 -
Exclude URL Parameters?
Hello, I am new in SEO and I am trying to understand the basics in URL parameters. Let’s assume that I have an ecommerce site with Categories (Category1, Category2) Views (listview=1, listview=2) Orders (OrderBy=1, OrderBy=2) Pages (pg=1, pg=2) Why should I add google to index pages with different views and Listing orders? What is the benefit for the site to have the same content with different order? I am not sure but maybe only need pages in order to google to “travel” between the pages? For example: www.mydomain.com/books/pg=1 www.mydomain.com/books/?order=date www.mydomain.com/books/?listview =1 The products in pages (pg) will always include products in order and listview? Why should google index again the content? Furthermore, from the last time that google index the pg=1 the products has changed. Thank you in advanced
Technical SEO | | ArisGast0 -
Change URL or use Canonicals and Redirects?
We just completed a conclusive a/b test on a client's landing page. The new page saw a 30% bump in conversions, yay! Now what? Option 1: Change the url of the new page to that of the old page, retire the old page. Option 2: Redirect the old page and anything that was pointing to it to the new page, make the new page the canonical. I'm afraid of option 1 because I think Google's WTF penalty will be a bit harsher than option 2, but I wanted to sanity check that here. Any thoughts or experienced advice would be very appreciated!
Technical SEO | | LindsayDayton0 -
Mobile site ranking instead of/as well as desktop site in desktop SERPS
I have just noticed that the mobile version of my site is sometimes ranking in the desktop serps either instead of as well as the desktop site. It is not something that I have noticed in the past as it doesn't happen with the keywords that I track, which are highly competitive. It is happening for results that include our brand name, e.g '[brand name][search term]'. The mobile site is served with mobile optimised content from another URL. e.g wwww.domain.com/productpage redirects to m.domain.com/productpage for mobile. Sometimes I am only seen the mobile URL in the desktop SERPS, other times I am seeing both the desktop and mobile URL for the same product. My understanding is that the mobile URL should not be ranking at all in desktop SERPS, could we be being penalised for either bad redirects or duplicate content? Any ideas as to how I could further diagnose and solve the problem if you do believe that it could be harming rankings?
Technical SEO | | pugh0 -
Second URL
Hi We have a .com and a .co.uk Main website is .co.uk, we also have a landing page for the .com If we redirect the .com to the .co.uk, will it create duplicate content ... May seem like a silly question, but want to be sure that that the visitors cant access our website at both urls, as that would be duplicate content Thanks in advance John
Technical SEO | | Johnny4B0 -
Wordpress URL weirdness - why is google registering non-pretty URLS?
I've noticed in my stats that google is indexing some non-pretty URLs from my wordpress-based blog.
Technical SEO | | peterdbaron
For instance, this URL is appearing google search: http://www.admissionsquest.com/onboardingschools/index.php?p=439 It should be: http://www.admissionsquest.com/onboardingschools/2009/01/do-american-boarding-schools-face-growing-international-competition.html Last week I added the plugin Redirection in order to consolidate categories & tags. Any chance that this has something to do with it? Recs on how to solve this? Fyi - I've been using pretty URLS with wordpress from the very beginning and this is the first time that I've seen this issue. Thanks in advance for your help!0 -
How best to redirect URL from expired classified ads?
We have problem because our content are classifieds. Every ad expired after one or two mounts and then ad becomes inactive and we keep his page for one mount latter like a same page but we ad a notice that ad is inactive. After that we delete the ad and his page but need to redirect that URL to search results page which contains similar ads because we don't want to lose the traffic form that pages. How is the best way to redirect ad URL? Our thinking was to redirect internal without 301 redirection because the httacces file will be very big after a while and we are thinking to try a canonicalization because we don't want engine to think that we have to much duplicate content.
Technical SEO | | Donaab0