Are clean mobile URL's necessary?
-
Adding code to redirect/clean up ugly URL's slows down mobile site performance, so it is necessary if we are already using rel=alternate tags on our desktop/www pages?
-
No, we were using them for the proper indexing of our mobile pages.
I've instructed our Dev team to continue using clean mobile URLs. I imagine clean URLs would only increase the likelihood of better ranking since it's indexed sooner than the actual page source. Especially with search engines working towards semantic search, it would be natural to assume URL structure would carry some weight.
Thanks for your input, Kristina!
-
Ah, I see, I thought you were using them to point to another mobile page with a "clean" URL.
So, sounds like you've properly connected your mobile and desktop sites. But, using a rel=alternate doesn't mean that the desktop URL replaces the mobile URL when it comes to search. In fact, it means the opposite: Google shows mobile URLs in mobile search results even when it's the desktop version of the site that has the authority to rank as well as it does. Mobile searchers are definitely going to see your "ugly" URL.
As long as you're okay with that (and I don't think that you necessarily shouldn't be), having an ugly mobile URL is fine, just not optimal.
-
This is what I'm referring to: <link rel="alternate" media="only screen and (max-width: 640px)" whenever="" a="" spider="" visits="" your="" desktop="" site.="" works="" much="" the="" way="" rel="canonical" does="" for="" mobile="" to="" when="" separate="" url's="" are="" used="" websites="" and="" is="" useful="" responsive="" design="" not="" an="" option="" or="" isn't="" ideal="" company's="" site.<="" p=""></link rel="alternate">
Reference:
https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/feature-phones
Separate URLs > Dedicated URLs configuration
-
Hi Recbrands,
Nope. Actually, the importance of clean URLs is dropping as people pay less and less attention to them. They were incredibly important a few years ago, but now, I don't recommend that my clients change their URLs unless they're going through a massive site redesign anyway.
I'm a little worried about your rel=alternate tags, though. What are you using them for? You should only have one location for information, and if you have two, you should use rel=canonical.
Hope this helps!
Kristina
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
-
What is your experience so far, with the new Google's Meta Description length up to 320 characters?
I updated a few home pages and some landing pages, so far so good! Although, I wish to know about other experiences, before continue updating. Thanks for your comments!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mª Verónica B.2 -
Canonical's, Social Signals and Multi-Regional website.
Hi all, I have a website that is setup to target different countries by using subfolders. Example /aus/, /us/, /nz/. The homepage itself is just a landing page redirect to whichever country the user belongs to. Example somebody accesses https://domain/ and will be redirected to one of the country specific sub folders. The default subfolder is /us/, so all users will be redirected to it if their country has not been setup on the website. The content is mostly the same on each country site apart from localisation and in some case content specific to that country. I have set up each country sub folder as a separate site in Search Console and targeted /aus/ to AU users and /nz/ to NZ users. I've also left the /us/ version un-targeted to any specific geographical region. In addition to this I've also setup hreflang tags for each page on the site which links to the same content on the other country subfolder. I've target /aus/ and /nz/ to en-au and en-nz respectively and targeted /us/ to en-us and x-default as per various articles around the web. We generally advertise our links without a country code prefix, and the system will automatically redirect the user to the correct country when they hit that url. Example, somebody accesses https://domain/blog/my-post/, a 302 will be issues for https://domain/aus/blog/my-post/ or https://domain/us/blog/my-post/ etc.. The country-less links are advertised on Facebook and in all our marketing campaigns Overall, I feel our website is ranking quite poorly and I'm wondering if poor social signals are a part of it? We have a decent social following on Facebook (65k) and post regular blog posts to our Facebook page that tend to peek quite a bit of interest. I would have expected that this would contribute to our ranking at least somewhat? I am wondering whether the country-less link we advertise on Facebook would be causing Googlebot to ignore it as a social signal for the country specific pages on our website. Example Googlebot indexes https://domain/us/blog/my-post/ and looks for social signals for https://domain/us/blog/my-post/ specifically, however, it doesn't pick up anything because the campaign url we use is https://domain/blog/my-post/. If that is the case, I am wondering how I would fix that, to receive the appropriate social signals /us/blog/my-post/, /aus/blog/my-post/ & /nz/blog/my-post/. I am wondering if changing the canonical url to the country-less url of each page would improve my social signals and performance in the search engines overall. I would be interested to hear your feedback. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | destinyrescue0 -
Keyword research when the site's subject is low volume
Hey guys, what do you do when you planning a new website and doing keyword research for a site when the avg. search volumes are relatively low. We set up run contact centres for UK charities including voice, webchat, sms, email and response fulfillment etc. It seems that people aren't really searching that often for this 'sexy subject'. Average volumes for searches with some intent/qualifier range from between 10-100 monthly searches. What sort of strategies would you adopt in this scenario? Do you optimise for what you can and then make a large focus on other digital marketing tactics such as content marketing, social media, email marketing etc. Thanks for your time guys Leo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Leo_Woodhead0 -
Is it a problem that Google's index shows paginated page urls, even with canonical tags in place?
Since Google shows more pages indexed than makes sense, I used Google's API and some other means to get everything Google has in its index for a site I'm working on. The results bring up a couple of oddities. It shows a lot of urls to the same page, but with different tracking code.The url with tracking code always follows a question mark and could look like: http://www.MozExampleURL.com?tracking-example http://www.MozExampleURL.com?another-tracking-examle http://www.MozExampleURL.com?tracking-example-3 etc So, the only thing that distinguishes one url from the next is a tracking url. On these pages, canonical tags are in place as: <link rel="canonical<a class="attribute-value">l</a>" href="http://www.MozExampleURL.com" /> So, why does the index have urls that are only different in terms of tracking urls? I would think it would ignore everything, starting with the question mark. The index also shows paginated pages. I would think it should show the one canonical url and leave it at that. Is this a problem about which something should be done? Best... Darcy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Best way to view Global Navigation bar from GoogleBot's perspective
Hi, Links in the global navigation bar of our website do not show up when we look at Google cache --> text only version of the page. These links use "style="<a class="attribute-value">display:none;</a>" when we looked at HTML source. But if I use "user agent switcher" add-on in Firefox and set it to Googlebot, the links in global nav are displayed. I am wondering what is the best way to find out if Google can/can not see the links. Thanks for the help! Supriya.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SShiyekar0 -
I want your opinions on the lack of increase in Pintrest's PR
Many months ago, a fellow marketer at my company introduced me to Pintrest, claiming that it would be good for our business. Pintrest was very much unknown by many just a few short months ago. Since then, I have seen it take off like wildfire, with excessive media coverage, registrations, and people putting the button on their sites. It must have thousands more backlinks now than it did six months ago--high quality ones too, as it's had coverage in virtually every major new media outlet. I want your opinion as to why it has remained a PR6 site this entire time. It was a PR6 site then and it still is now. I know the increase in PR is algorithmic, but come on! Can people share their experiences they've had link building for those higher PR sites? How much harder does it get?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | UnderRugSwept1 -
New gTLD's, buy or wait and see?
Is the new gTLD scheme from ICANN worth the money? I manage a brand relatively well-known in our own market segment. Would I benefit from moving from .com and national TLDs for my international sites to my own brand TLD? Are there any obvious SEO pros and cons?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KnutDSvendsen0 -
What's the best way to hold newly purchased domains over 2 years?
Hi, A friend has just bought 3 domains and is not planning to build websites with them for around 2 years. He asked me what the best thing to do with these domains was...I have 2 ways of look ing at it: a) Putting a holding page on these and submit to Google Webmaster Tools - this way they are indexed by Google and hold search engine trust when the site finally goes up - HOWEVER, if they are not updated with fresh content would that work against them in 2 years time? b) Simply redirect them to their existing site and don't do anything else. Let me know your thoughts. Adido.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Adido-1053990