Followup question to rand(om) question: Would two different versions (mobile/desktop) on the same URL work well from an SEO perspective and provide a better overall end-user experience?
-
We read today's rand(om) question on responsive design. This is a topic we have been thinking about and ultimately landing on a different solution. Our opinion is the best user experience is two version (desktop and mobile) that live on one URL.
For example, a non-mobile visitor that visits http://www.tripadvisor.com/ will see the desktop (non-responsive) version. However, if a mobile visitor (i.e. iOS) visits the same URL they will see a mobile version of the site, but it is still on the same URL There is not a separate subdomain or URL - instead the page dynamically changes based on the end user's user agent.
It looks like they are accomplishing this by using javascript to change the physical layout of the page to match the user's device. This is what we are considering doing for our site.
It seems this would simultaneously solve the problems mentioned in the rand(om) question and provide an even better user experience. By using this method, we can create a truly mobile version of the website that is similar to an app. Unfortunately, mobile versions and desktop users have very different expectations and behaviors while interacting with a webpage.
I'm interested to hear the negative side of developing two versions of the site and using javascript to serve the "right" version on the same URL. Thanks for your time!
-
Hey David,
TripAdvisor doesn't use JavaScript to decide if you get the mobile version or note. The server detects your useragent and then sends you the proper version of the site (on the same URL as you noted).
Remember, JavaScript executes on your client. So the JavaScript would have to be sent to your browser and then execute before it could figure out what kind of device you were on and then render the rest of the page. That's basically how responsive design works, except that most commonly a CSS @Media Queries is used to determine the width of your viewport, and then the page is optimized for that width.
What TripAdvisor does, is what Google calles a Dynamic website. Basically the server handshakes with the browser before the page is sent, the server learns the useragent, and then sends different source code to the browser that is specific to that type of device/browser.
You can read about the google definitions, I'm referencing here: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details
You can read a bit more about the SEO implications of the three approaches in this thread: http://www.seomoz.org/q/how-does-a-responsive-site-kill-seo
I prefer to use Dynamic websites when the user tasks are likely to be different on different devices. (i.e. Trip Advisor has a "Near Me Now" on smartphones, but not on the desktop).
I prefer Responsive Design, when my content and user tasks are going to be the same on all devices, and only the formatting/presentation is going to be the same. (such as reading a blog)
I prefer separate URLs when the Information Architecture is going to be dramatically different on different devices, and it's unlikely that a single user is going to share URLs across multiple devices. (Such as displaying a mobile boarding pass on a mobile phone, that I'd never offer on a desktop device, or scanning barcodes in a store).
In many cases, you can combine all three. I.E. detect different devices on server to send different images and menus (Dynamic). Use @media queries to optimize my content for the exact width of my current viewport (Responsive), and have a separate m.URL for mobile only pages, like that mobile boarding pass. The cool buzzword for combining responsive and dynamic is called Responsive Design with Server Side Components or RESS (I have no idea what happened to the W or C in that acronym).
I hope that helps!
-Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg.
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
-
We are redirecting http and non www versions of our website. Should all versions http (non www version and www version) and https (non www version) should just have 1 redirect to the https www version?
We are redirecting http and non www versions of our website. Should all versions http (non www version and www version) and https (non www version) should just have 1 redirect to the https www version? Thant way all forms of the website are pointing to one version?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Caffeine_Marketing0 -
Looking for SEO advice on Negative SEO attack. Technical SEO
please see this link https://www.dropbox.com/s/thgy57zmmwzodcp/Screenshot 2016-05-31 13.25.23.png?dl=0 you can see my domain is getting tons of chinese spam. I have 410'd the page but it still keeps coming.. 7tnawRV
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mattguitar990 -
Local SEO - two businesses at same address - best course of action?
Hi Mozzers - I'm working with 2 businesses at the moment, at the same address - the only difference between the two is the phone number. I could ask to split the business addresses apart, so that NAP(name, address, phone number) is different for each businesses (only the postcode will be the same). Or simply carry on at the moment, with the N and Ps different, yet with the As the same - the same addresses for both businesses. I've never experienced this issue before, so I'd value your input. Many thanks, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Same content pages in different versions of Google - is it duplicate>
Here's my issue I have the same page twice for content but on different url for the country, for example: www.example.com/gb/page/ and www.example.com/us/page So one for USA and one for Great Britain. Or it could be a subdomain gb. or us. etc. Now is it duplicate content is US version indexes the page and UK indexes other page (same content different url), the UK search engine will only see the UK page and the US the us page, different urls but same content. Is this bad for the panda update? or does this get away with it? People suggest it is ok and good for localised search for an international website - im not so sure. Really appreciate advice.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Altering Breadcrumbs based on User Path to Product URL
Hi, Our products are listed in multiple categories, and as the URLs are path dependent (example.com/fruit/apples/granny-smith/, example.com/fruit/green-fruit/granny-smith/ and so forth) we canonicalise to the 'default' URL (in this case example.com/fruit/apples/granny-smith/). For mainly crawling bandwidth issues I'm looking to change all product URL's to path neutral so there is only ever one URL per product (example.com/granny-smith/), but still list the product in multiple categories. If a user comes directly to example.com/granny-smith/ then the breadcrumbs will use the default path "Fruit > Apples", however if the user navigated to the product via another category then I'd like the breadcrumbs to reflect this. I'm not worried about cloaking as it's not based on user-agent and it's very logical why it's being done so I don't expect a penalty. My question is - how do you recommend this is achieved from a technical standpoint? Many sites use path neutral product URL's (Ikea, PCWorld etc) but none alter the breadcrumbs depending upon path. Our site is mostly behind a CDN so it has to be a client side solution. I currently view the options as: Store Path to product in a cookie and/or browsers local-cache Attach the Path details after a # in the URL and use Javascript to alter breadcrumbs onload with JQuery When a user clicks to a product from a listing page, use AJAX to pull in the product info but leave the rest of the page (including the breadcrumbs) as-is, updating the URL accordingly Do you think any of these wouldn't work? Do you have a preference on which one is best? Is there another method you'd recommend? We also have "Next/Previous" functionality (links to the previous and next product URLs) on the page so I suspect we'd need to attach the path after a # and make another round trip to the server onload to update the previous and next links. Finally, does anyone know of any sites that do update the breadcrumbs depending upon path? Thanks in advance for your time FashionLux
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FashionLux1 -
Duplicate page titles Wordpress SEO/Yoast
Hi I have a Wordpress site using the Wordpress SEO plugin by Yoast. Everything appears to be fine except that on 1 Feb SEOMoz crawl suddenly picked up a bunch of errors. The errors are duplicate page titles, and these exist only for the mysite.com/page/X pages. I can't find any setting in Yoast that looks wrong or tells me how to fix this. The pages are also dynamically canonicalizing to themselves - not sure if this makes any difference although I don't know how this is happening. Does anyone know how to fix this duplicate title error? Alex
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alextanner0 -
Submitting URLs multiple times in different sitemaps
We have a very dynamic site, with a large number of pages. We use a sitemap index file, that points to several smaller sitemap files. The question is: Would there be any issue if we include the same URL in multiple sitemap files? Scenario: URL1 appears on sitemap1. 2 weeks later, the page at URL1 changes and we'd like to update it on a sitemap. Would it be acceptable to add URL1 as an entry in sitemap2? Would there be any issues with the same URL appearing multiple times? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | msquare0 -
SEO question
Hi i changed my page titles for a competitive keyword last week and noticed it has dropped 9 search engine ranking positions. Was ranking 37 and now it 46. Would you guys leave it and see if it starts creeping back up or change again? the page title i used was across my pages for example was Primary keyword | secondary keyword | Heading on page thanks for you help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wazza19850