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.
What if page exists for desktop but not mobile?
-
I have a domain (no subdomains) that serves up different dynamic content for mobile/desktop pages--each having the exact same page url, kind of a semi responsive design, and will be using "Vary: User-Agent" to give Google a heads up on this setup.
However, some of the pages are only valid for mobile or only valid for desktop. In the case of when a page is valid only for mobile (call it mysite.com/mobile-page-only ), Google Webmaster Tools is giving me a soft 404 error under Desktop, saying that the page does not exist, Apparently it is doing that because my program is actually redirecting the user/crawler to the home page. It appears from the info about soft 404 errors that Google is saying since it "doesn't exist" I should give the user a 404 page--which I can make it customized and give the user an option to go to the home page, or choose links from a menu, etc..
My concern is that if I tell the desktop bot that mysite.com/mobile-page-only basically is a 404 error (ie doesn't exist), that it could mess up the mobile bot indexing for that page--since it definitely DOES exist for mobile users..
Does anyone here know for sure that Google will index a page for mobile that is a 404 not found for desktop and vice versa? Obviously it is important to not remove something from an index in which it belongs, so whether Google is careful to differential the two is a very important issue. Has anybody here dealt with this or seen anything from Google that addresses it? Might one be better off leaving it as a soft 404 error?
EDIT: also, what about Bing and Yahoo? Can we assume they will handle it the same way?
EDIT: closely related question--in a case like mine does Google need a separate sitemap for the valid mobile pages and valid desktop pages even though most links will be in both? I can't tell from reading several q&a on this.
Thanks, Ted
-
Monica,
I'm going to open a new thread to ask a similar question, as I think I didn't ask it very well.
Thanks for your input,
Ted
-
Thanks. If I understand you, the mobile bot won't crawl a url that the desktop bot has said needs to be fixed for it to work right for desktop. . Would you agree that doesn't really sound right on Google's part, since the url is fine for mobile use? I don't know why it wouldn't crawl for mobile, but if that's the way it is I can try fixing it on desktop to see if that enables the mobile to get crawled.
Once I do that I guess I'll find out whether a 404 not found for desktop will disable it from crawling for mobile (yes that link is accessible from other pages)--I was hoping to avoid trial and error on that because the time lag seems like it would be hard to pin down.
In a nutshell here's what I'm concerned will happen:
Google mobile bot crawls my mobile page and indexes it: Then the desktop bot crawls the same url and gets a 404 not found. Because of the desktop not found, Google removes it from the mobile page index.
I don't see a good way to test that since it depends on when each crawler is crawling. And, if this is what it is doing, I can't think of a good solution to having a responsive site with some content meant only for mobile indexing or only for desktop indexing.
-
If a URL is labeled a 404 it will not be crawled again unless there is a reason to, you mark it as fixed, or you edit the link in some form or fashion. Mark it as fixed and see if the error comes back. There is no harm in doing this.
Can you get to the page on your mobile device just by clicking through your site? If you can, that is good, it will eventually encourage a mobile bot to crawl it. If you can fetch and render as google, then I would just give it some time. I am not sure if there is a string of code you can add to the head of that page telling the robots that it is a mobile only page. I don't know how that works.
I would just mark it as fixed right now and see what happens over the next couple of days.
-
Hi Monica-thanks for your reply:
Ok, for a page that is supposed to be mobile only within a responsive-like setup(ie one domain) here's what I see:
The desktop bot crawls the link and gives a soft 404 error -- presumably because the page is currently being redirected to the home page.
The mobile bot is not crawling that link despite it being prominent on the main site home page, as my dbase is tracking the bot crawling and is not showing that it crawled that link for mobile (but is for desktop), and a search on my smartphone doesn't show that link either (even though it does show other links for pages used by both).. **Yet, if I fetch the mobile only page in webmaster tools using their mobile bot it finds it and renders it perfectly. ** So, why isn't it crawling it? Is it because when the mobile bot crawls it first looks and sees that that link is already 'flagged' as a soft 404 for the desktop? Or, is it because the mobile crawler is getting hung up on a link on the home page for mobile that has nothing to do with this mobile-only link?
It appears that the mobile bot is influenced by the desktop bot results--which is my fear: It seems to me their 2 bots should be independent of each other. If they aren't independent then if I change it to a 404 not found for desktop, would that even help, or would that prevent the mobile bot from ever trying to crawl it?
I would think that anybody who has a responsive page design and has blocked out certain content so that it renders only for mobile or only for non-mobile has had to face this issue.
Not sure what to do--I could fix the soft errors--change them to 404 not found and just see then if Google starts indexing for mobile or not, but was hoping to get some feedback before experimenting.
Thanks again, and please share more if you have more thoughts!
-
Did you look at your Mobile 404 errors? Google uses a different bot for mobile sites and anything related to that mobile page. Chances are, if it isn't reflecting a 404 in the Mobile errors in GWT, it is being indexed properly.
Check it out from you phone. Google the exact keyword and your company name. See if you can get to the page and if it is in fact the correct page.
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
-
Is it ok to repeat a (focus) keyword used on a previous page, on a new page?
I am cataloguing the pages on our website in terms of which focus keyword has been used with the page. I've noticed that some pages repeated the same keyword / term. I've heard that it's not really good practice, as it's like telling google conflicting information, as the pages with the same keywords will be competing against each other. Is this correct information? If so, is the alternative to use various long-winded keywords instead? If not, meaning it's ok to repeat the keyword on different pages, is there a maximum recommended number of times that we want to repeat the word? Still new-ish to SEO, so any help is much appreciated! V.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vitzz1 -
Would You Redirect a Page if the Parent Page was Redirected?
Hi everyone! Let's use this as an example URL: https://www.example.com/marvel/avengers/hulk/ We have done a 301 redirect for the "Avengers" page to another page on the site. Sibling pages of the "Hulk" page live off "marvel" now (ex: /marvel/thor/ and /marvel/iron-man/). Is there any benefit in doing a 301 for the "Hulk" page to live at /marvel/hulk/ like it's sibling pages? Is there any harm long-term in leaving the "Hulk" page under a permanently redirected page? Thank you! Matt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | amag0 -
If a page ranks in the wrong country and is redirected, does that problem pass to the new page?
Hi guys, I'm having a weird problem: A new multilingual site was launched about 2 months ago. It has correct hreflang tags and Geo targetting in GSC for every language version. We redirected some relevant pages (with good PA) from another website of our client's. It turned out that the pages were not ranking in the correct country markets (for example, the en-gb page ranking in the USA). The pages from our site seem to have the same problem. Do you think they inherited it due to the redirects? Is it possible that Google will sort things out over some time, given the fact that the new pages have correct hreflangs? Is there stuff we could do to help ranking in the correct country markets?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ParisChildress1 -
Can noindexed pages accrue page authority?
My company's site has a large set of pages (tens of thousands) that have very thin or no content. They typically target a single low-competition keyword (and typically rank very well), but the pages have a very high bounce rate and are definitely hurting our domain's overall rankings via Panda (quality ranking). I'm planning on recommending we noindexed these pages temporarily, and reindex each page as resources are able to fill in content. My question is whether an individual page will be able to accrue any page authority for that target term while noindexed. We DO want to rank for all those terms, just not until we have the content to back it up. However, we're in a pretty competitive space up against domains that have been around a lot longer and have higher domain authorities. Like I said, these pages rank well right now, even with thin content. The worry is if we noindex them while we slowly build out content, will our competitors get the edge on those terms (with their subpar but continually available content)? Do you think Google will give us any credit for having had the page all along, just not always indexed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | THandorf0 -
Do Page Anchors Affect SEO?
Hi everyone, I've been researching for the past hour and I cannot find a definitive answer anywhere! Can someone tell me if page anchors affect SEO at all? I have a client that has 9 page anchors on one landing page on their website - which means if you were to scroll through their website, the page is really really long! I always thought that by using page anchors instead of sending users through to a dedicated landing page, ranking for those keywords makes it harder because a search spider will read all the content on that landing page and not know how to rank for individual keywords? Am I wrong? The client in particular sells furniture, so on their landing page they have page anchors that jump the user down to "tables" or "chairs" or "lighting" for example. You can then click on one of the product images listed in that section of the page anchor and go through to an individual product page. Can anyone shed any light on this? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Virginia-Girtz1 -
When should you 410 pages instead of 404
Hi All, We have approx 6,000 - 404 pages. These are for categories etc we don't do anymore and there is not near replacement etc so basically no reason or benefit to have them at all. I can see in GWT , these are still being crawled/found and therefore taking up crawler bandwidth. Our SEO agency said we should 410 these pages?.. I am wondering what the difference is and how google treats them differently ?. Do anyone know When should you 410 pages instead of 404 ? thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
How long takes to a page show up in Google results after removing noindex from a page?
Hi folks, A client of mine created a new page and used meta robots noindex to not show the page while they are not ready to launch it. The problem is that somehow Google "crawled" the page and now, after removing the meta robots noindex, the page does not show up in the results. We've tried to crawl it using Fetch as Googlebot, and then submit it using the button that appears. We've included the page in sitemap.xml and also used the old Google submit new page URL https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url Does anyone know how long will it take for Google to show the page AFTER removing meta robots noindex from the page? Any reliable references of the statement? I did not find any Google video/post about this. I know that in some days it will appear but I'd like to have a good reference for the future. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fabioricotta-840380 -
Generating 404 Errors but the Pages Exist
Hey I have recently come across an issue with several of a sites urls being seen as a 404 by bots such as Xenu, SEOMoz, Google Web Tools etc. The funny thing is, the pages exist and display fine. This happens on many of the pages which use the Modx CMS, but the index is fine. The wordpress blog in /blog/ all works fine. The only thing I can think of is that I have a conflict in the htaccess, but troubleshooting this is difficult, any tool I have found online seem useless. Have tried to rollback to previous versions but still does not work. Anyone had any experience of similar issues? Many thanks K.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Found0