Mobile site is not ranking in the mobile search results
-
I posted last month about problems with a mobile site, which is served from a separate URL (m.mydomain.com) as currently responsive design is not an option.
The problem was that the mobile site was being returned in the desktop index along with the desktop site, and the desktop site was being returned in the mobile index instead of the mobile site.
I have therefore implemented rel=canonical and rel=alternate as is advised by Google, but this has stopped the desktop site from appearing in the mobile index, but hasn't caused the mobile site to rank instead.
What should I do now? One idea I have is to remove the rel=canonical and rel=alternate links so that the desktop site ranks in the mobile index again. There is a redirect in place anyway so when people click on a desktop link from a mobile search, they will still be redirected to the mobile equivalent.
I could then set the m.mydomain.com to noindex to stop it from being returned in the desktop results and potentially causing duplicate content issues?
What do you think about this as a work around?
-
Hi, I'm wondering what implementation you used for the rel=canonical? I'm very surprised to hear that adding the tags negatively impacted the mobile site's ranking in the mobile SERPs; all it should have done is change the URL to the m. version.
I would not recommend the workaround you suggested, as redirecting a ranking and indexed page to a noindexed page (let alone several noindexed pages) will most likely cause confusion for the crawler.
-
Thanks for the suggestion Anders. I have considered this, although other advice suggests googlebot should not be blocked.
I have now managed to get Google analytics set up for the mobile domain. Before I had been relying on webmaster tools which for some reason is reporting that there is no traffic landing on my m.domain.com, whereas GA shows that it is now getting traffic from mobile and not desktop, as desired. So even though the mobile urls are ranking in the desktop results, users are not landing on them.
-
Hi!
Have you considered blocking googlebot from the mobile site, only allowing googlebot-mobile to crawl the site? And vice versa for the desktop site? See https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1061943?hl=en for a list of googlebots...
Best regards,
Anders
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
-
Migrated site back in April and rankings have not returned.
I sure hope someone can help me with this. Back in April I migrated my site and did a website redesign. We implemented all the 301 redirect page for page. I lost about 40% of traffic. My main key word is baby headbands that goes to our home page. www.princessbowtique.com We were ranking at number two and have fallen down to number 9 and 10 and have recently come back up to number 8. My question is and I am wondering if there is something wrong with my HTML Code, or something else. All other pages stay lost some rankings but not as much a my home page. This home page is what gets most of my traffic and we are really hurting. I've had to let go of my employees and it's looking really bad for our business. Anyhow I'm trying to figure out what I can do it improve. I migrated to Big Commerce and they did all the 301 redirects. All catagories stayed the same url but the product pages did have 301 redirects.
Technical SEO | | PB20070 -
Ranking in other countries.
Hi, To rank in Dubai and UK is it just a matter of mentioning it in a blog post or more technical things need to be setup? we have two sites one empty which i have 301 to the main site would you use the other site for dubia? Regards
Technical SEO | | ReSEOlve0 -
Goolge: Mobile friendliness is now a ranking factor on Mobile
John Mueller from Google has just confirmed: Google has just confirmed that mobile friendliness is now a ranking factor for people on smartphones. The date it goes live is 24th April 2015. There is a great presentation on the hangout - which will be available later to watch and once its available I will update with a link - but I would make sure your checking webmaster tools for any alerts / messages if you care about smartphone users. What do people recommend, regarding responsive vs mobile site vs dynamic serving. Is your site ready? What are you planning on doing since the update has been announced.
Technical SEO | | Andy-Halliday1 -
What should the combined domain rank of 2 sites?
We have just combined 2 sites by redirecting a site with a domain ranking of 35 to a site with a domain ranking of 27 (this is because the we want to use the address with a ranking of 27) After a week I now have 1 domain with a ranking of 26?? So my questions are; Should the ranking have increased already? What should I expect the ranking to increase to if at all? Is there something I could have done wrong when transferring? Thanks
Technical SEO | | benj450 -
Why does my site rank so badly
its my turn to ask the interminable question why does my site rank so badly? site is: marriagerecords.org.uk. it was #1 for 'marriage records' on google for about 6 months. then it was 5th to 10th for about 2 months. now it is nowhere for this phrase and anything else, none of the pages I have written rank for anything. I have spent hours upon hours researching original content and I have got some great backlinks from sites like wrexham.gov.uk and somerset.gov.uk (some dont show in opensiteexplorer yet). im guessing im over-optimizing something but i'd love some concrete fixes if anyone could suggest any. thanks, tom
Technical SEO | | lethal0r0 -
Search result pages - noindex but auto follow?
Hi guys, I don't index my search pages, and currently my pages are tagged name="robots" content="noindex"> Do I need to specify follow or will it automatically be done? Thanks Cyto
Technical SEO | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
Is optimising on page mobile site content a waiste of time?
Good Morning from dull & overcast 2 degrees C wetherby UK 😞 Whilst Ive changed markup for seo purposes on desktop versions I would like to know if the principles of optimising on page content ie modifyting <title><h1> is exactly the same for <a href="http://www.innoviafilms.com/m/Home.aspx">http://www.innoviafilms.com/m/Home.aspx</a></p> <p>Whilst the desktop version of innovia films ranks well for the terms the client requested some time back now their attention is focusing on the mobile site but I feel a bit confused and I'll try my best to explain...</p> <p>Is it not totally redundant to "Optimise" a mobile site content as when i search via google on a smartphone i'm seeing the SERPS from the desktop version and when I click on a snippet the mobile site just piggybacks on the back of the listing anyway.</p> <p>Put another way is it not a royal waist of time tinkering with mobile site on page content for long as Googles SERPS on a smartphone are exactly the same as on a desktop ie they are not too seperate entities.</p> <p>Or am i totally wrong and you could optimise a mobile for a completely different term to its parent desktop version.?</p> <p>Tried to explain this the best i can, my head hurts... :-(</p> <p>Any insights</p> <p>welcome :-)</p></title>
Technical SEO | | Nightwing0 -
The course of action to move my macro site to some mini sites- justin if you can help
We have a site that we want to break up into mini sites but keep the old site for the major brands. Empirecovers.com is the major and we want to break it off into Empire Truck Covers and Empire Boat covers. What I am thinking of doing is linking from the home to Empiretruckcovers.com instead of a mini page on the site and 301 redirect the mini page to empiretruckcovers.com. Than (there wont be duplicate content) making a small page for truck covers on empire just so people do not get confused. Is this the best way to go or what do you suggest? We are doing this because I feel there is seo value in having mini sites and also the user experience will be cleaner and people will trust it a lot more than inside a big site. The other problem is I have some great rankings on the pages so I want to do it so there is as little damage as possible. I guess once I start I will do all the free directories, yahoo directory and try to get links as fast as I can. Any suggestions would be great. I am going to do a/b testing to see if my adwords convert better on mini site or on the big site for certain keywords too
Technical SEO | | goldjake17880