For a mobile website, is it better to use a 301 vs. a 302 redirect?
-
We are vetting a vendor for our mobile website and they are recommending using a 302 redirect with rel=canonical vs. a 301 redirect due to 301 caching issues. All the research I've done shows that a 301 is by far the better way to go do to proper indexing, which in turn will enhance our page authority. Thoughts on why a 302 would be a better fit than a 301 on our mobile site?
-
You shouldn't be using a redirect at all for a mobile site. You simply tag the mobile site with rel=canonical and then rel alt the desktop site.
302 redirecting is the biggest mistake ever. Run away from this vendor as fast as you can.
-
I'd stay away from 302 redirections as much as I can, and simply serve a site based on the user agent,
or you may simply offer your clients the choice between the two versions using some kind modal popup.
Here this video might help answer your question.
http://support.dudamobile.com/entries/20308913-does-redirecting-to-a-mobile-site-create-seo-issues
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
-
301 Redirect and Canonical link tag pointing in opposite directions!
I'm working on a site which redirects the non-WWW version to WWW version so, for example https://website.com/page redirects to https://www.website.com/page However, canonical link tags have been set up on the page - pointing back to the non-WWW so for example Q - is this going to cause issues and should the canonical be updated to the same version as the redirect?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SWEMII0 -
Desktop vs. Mobile Results
When googling on www.google.ca for "wedding invitations" and in my own geo location market of Toronto, my site - www.stephita.com, will show up differently on SERP on desktop (Chrome & IE) vs. mobile (iPad, iPhone, android, etc.). On desktop SERP, I will show up 6/7 position... (which is relatively a new position, the past 3 weeks - I was previously on page 2) (After a bunch of SEO fixes, I've managed to propel my site back to page 1!) On mobile SERP, I only show up on 1/2 position on PAGE 2 😞 As I mentioned above, I did a bunch of SEO fixes that I think were related to Panda/Penguin algos. So I'm wondering why my MOBILE SERP has NOT improved along the way? What should I be looking at to fix this 5-6 position differential? Thanks all!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TysonWong0 -
Have You 301 Redirected Domain A to Domain B ?
I only have two questions.... Approximately when did you do it (year is close enough)? Did the rankings of Domain B go up? Any other information that you care to share will be appreciated. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EGOL0 -
Ranking EMD to 301 for branding is it better to leave it as or 301 it?
We have a client about to enroll with us for SEO. The client has about 50 EMD sites, out of which 9 are ranking. An EMD has [Exact] match anchoring naturally, the sites in question are all EMDs the link profiles show it. The client wants to 301 the EMDs to a brand page.. We would want to 301, 9 EMD sites to the new site. Here is the thing, if the site domain has an exact match to the anchor text profile, when we 301 the page to www.brand.com/EMD will the link profile matter? One of the EMDs is on page one spot 2 if we do this change, will Google look at the new brand page (www.brand.com/EMD) as an unnatural link profile?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bryan_Loconto0 -
Using a .de domain for non-german website. Sane?
Hi there guys(and girls), I bought a beautiful and clever .de domain, however I plan to use it for a brazillian website. Since GWT does not allow me to change the target location, and I am stuck with Germany on Google's eyes, I would like to know how bad would it be to stick with the .de domain? My content won't be international. It will focus only in portuguese(Brazil) content. Is there a way to make it work? I would really like to stick with this domain, but Google's organic traffic cannot be overlooked... Thanks in advance for all input I can get. Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adepalma0 -
301 redirect Actinic HTML pages to ASP. Achievable?
Hi - I'm hoping someone can help me resolve an issue in relation to setting up 301 redirects. The client to whom I provide SEO services is being told by his developers that setting up 301 redirects is not achievable from old HTML pages to his new site running on a Windows server. My feeling is that it should be fine, and I have found documentation online that seems to support this, however I'm no developer, certainly no server admin, so I was wondering if anyone could advise me? Is it feasible to set up 301 redirects from Actinic sites (HTML pages) to a new site in NOP commerce running on a Windows server (ASP pages). Thank you for your help! Iain
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wynyard0 -
Undo a 301 redirect
Hi there, 4 months ago I have done a redirect from one domain to another. Now, after about 120 days I have just a few results from the old domain indexed. The problem is that I believe that the old domain name had a really big impact on rankings, as it had the main keyword in the domain name. I'm wondering now if I could restore the old domain just by taking out the 301 instruction and how will search engines react. Do you have any studies on that? Would it be possible? Matt Cutts himself did it with his own domain, but he doesn't talk specifically on the effect of the rankings: http://www.thedotcomblog.com/seo/redirects-after-change-in-domain-name Thanks in advance for any help,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SandraMoZ0 -
301 Redirects After Company Acquisition
We recently acquired a company, and now we are going to redirect all of the pages on their site to their respective pages on our site. Do we need to keep the original pages on their site active? For how long? Ideally, we would like to redirect everything and remove the old site entirely so we don't have to pay to keep hosting it. Is this possible? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pbhatt1