Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Different title tags and meta descriptions for desktop and mobile?
-
Is it possible to use different title tags and meta descriptions for mobile users? For Example: In the SERP for desktop you'll see the desktop title tags and meta descriptions, but in the SERP for mobile you'll the mobile versions of the webpage.
-
It's a great question and as the article Andy mentioned points out, there are benefits to optimizing your titles and metas for mobile. However if the site is responsive, then there is only one page and therefore only one title and description. If you serve different versions then you can do it. You'd need to host the mobile version on something like m.example.com or do what Google calls "Dynamically Serving Different HTML On The Same URL". You can learn more here: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details.
-M
-
Hi Alex,
Yes, you can.
In fact, I will recommend to create different tags for both. Search pattern is different for mobile & desktop visitors. Mobile visitors are to be looking for different results than desktop visitors so it is important to do your keyword research for mobile traffic before creating the tags.
Mobile screens are smaller, there are fewer characters displayed in the SERPs. To adapt to the smaller screen size, it's important that your meta tags be formatted in a mobile-friendly style. Your title will be broken up into 2, possibly even 3 lines on a mobile site. You should take this into consideration when writing your title tags to make sure your page title is visually appealing and makes sense on 2 lines.
The number of characters Google allots for title tags has also changed. Instead of getting 65-70 characters to work with, titles are now measured in pixels.
Also, there is less room for meta descriptions on a mobile site than on a desktop site. Try to write shorter tags to avoid potential issues with your mobile site.
Hope this will help.
-
Hi Alex,
This really depends on how the mobile site is created, but I would suggest you have a read of this MOZ post that talks about optimising a site for mobile.
-Andy
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
-
Duplicate 'meta title' issue (AMP & NON-AMP Pages)
how to fix duplicate meta title issue in amp and non-amp pages? example.com
On-Page Optimization | | 21centuryweb
example.com/amp We have set the 'meta title' in desktop version & we don't want to change the title for AMP page as we have more than 10K pages on the website. ----As per SEMRUSH Tool---- ABOUT THIS ISSUE It is a bad idea to duplicate your title tag content in your first-level header. If your page’s <title>and <h1> tags match, the latter may appear over-optimized to search engines. Also, using the same content in titles and headers means a lost opportunity to incorporate other relevant keywords for your page.</p> <p><strong>HOW TO FIX IT</strong></p> <p>Try to create different content for your <title> and <h1> tags.<br /><br />this is what they are recommending, for the above issue we have asked our team to create unique meta and post title for desktop version but what about AMP page?<br /><br />Please help!</p></title>0 -
Does using Yoast variables for meta content overwrite any pages that already have custom meta content?
The question is about the Yoast plugin for WP sites. Let's say I have a site with 200 pages and custom meta descriptions / title tags already in place for the top 30 pages. If I use the Yoast variable tool to complete meta content for the remaining pages (and make my Moz issue tracker look happier), will that only affect the pages without custom meta descriptions or will it overwrite even the pages with the custom meta content that I want? In this situation, I do want to keep the meta content that is already in place on select pages. Thanks! Zack
On-Page Optimization | | rootandbranch0 -
Structured Data on mobile and desktop version of a page
Hey there,
On-Page Optimization | | Online-Marketing-Guy
certain pages of our website have mobile versions like m.mysite.com/content-xyz. On the desktop pages (i.e. mysite.com/content-xyz) we have "rich snippets for ratings" marked up and displayed in SERPs. However the ratings also appear in mobile search results when SERPS reference the mobile version of the page (m.mysite.com/content-xyz) which doesn't have any ratings or markup? I am trying to figure out how Google treats mobile versions of a page in relation to the desktop version in relation to structured data (breadcrumbs etc.)? Would you always mark up both versions to be the same? Any ideas and thoughts on this are greatly appreciated. Cheers, Jochen rich Snippets for Ratings1 -
Use of '&' in meta title
Hi, I know that use of '&' would be helpful to save space and also add more keyword variation to the title tag. But just want to make sure if it matters if I use '&' in most of my title tags? And also is it common to use more than & in one title? Would the following title be different in Google's perspective regardless of the title length? I am thinking they are all targeting the keywords 'fruit cake' and 'fruit bread', but the first one is the best. buy fruit cake & bread buy fruit cake & fruit bread buy fruit cake and fruit bread Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | russellbrown0 -
No meta description on category page
Hi Moz is reporting no meta description on a wordpress category page like this one: http://www.dwliverpoolphotography.co.uk/category/uncategorized/ Can I add a meta description to a category? Best wishes. David.
On-Page Optimization | | WallerD0 -
Should we add our company's name in page title tag or not?
We have been adding our company (Townscript) name in all the page titles. For example, in an event page of Lucknow Conclave: www.townscript.com/lucknowconclave the page title is Lucknow Conclave | Alexis Society | Townscript I read somewhere that it's not necessary to put your company's name in the title tag. Is it right? Please help!
On-Page Optimization | | sanchitmalik0 -
Duplicate meta descriptions
Hi all, I'm using Yoast's SEO plugin and when I run a On Page report card here on SEOMOZ it says there are 2 descriptions tags I've been trying to fix this but can't (I'm new!) Anyone any ideas on this? Thanks Elaine
On-Page Optimization | | elaineryan0 -
Alt tag matching product titles - e-commerce
Hey all, Just wondering if it is ok to match the alt tag to product titles. Imagine an e-commerce site that lists a whole lot of products on any one page for any one category. Each product listing has a thumbnail image beside it. The easiest way to implement this dynamically is to use the product title for the alt tag. Anyone had any experience with this? Is it overkill / spam of keywords - given that the product title is repeated. Our current situation is that our alt tags are simply blank or say 'photo' which is no good, and we have hundreds of thousands of pages. Cheers, Croozie
On-Page Optimization | | sichristie0