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.
M.ExampleSite vs mobile.ExampleSite vs ExampleSite.com
-
Hi,
I have a call with a potential client tomorrow where all I know is that they are wigged-out about canonicalization, indexing and architecture for their three sites:
The sites are pretty large... 350k for the mobiles and 5 million for the main site. They're a retailer with endless products. They're main site is not mobile-responsive, which is evidently why they have the m and mobile sites. Why two, I don't know.
This is how they currently hand this:
What would you suggest they do about this? The most comprehensive fix would be making the main site mobile responsive and 301 the old mobile sub domains to the main site. That's probably too much work for them. So, what more would you suggest and why?
Your thoughts? Best... Mike
P.S.,
Beneath my hand-drawn portrait avatar above it says "Staff" at this moment, which I am not. Some kind of bug I guess.
-
Hi Donna,
Thanks for all the help. I really appreciate it.
Best... Mike
-
Give them two options in a grid format:
(1) do nothing;
(2) redirect mobile to desktop
To the right of that, use two columns to convey pros and cons.
I guess you could do nothing and measure the impact for a few months, comparing this year to last. If things don't look good, then execute option 2. Might be hard to isolate the impact of the mobile index versus anything else though, but it's probably the best you can do.
And then there's the 3rd option... go responsive, but as you've said, you don't have time or budget for that unfortunately.
-
Hi Donna,
Thanks for the speedy reply. Yes, the thing that makes me nervous about that recommendation from the article is how do I even begin to weigh the odds on it being a net gain and then convey it to management? I mean, it's one thing for me to think, "yeah, let's roll the dice" and another to convey the trade-offs to a very typical management in something like numbers.
Thank you for noticing my avatar portrait. I did it over a Summer in the south of France. It will probably be worth a fortune once I am gone and regarded as a giant of the early 21st century world of art.
I wrote Moz about the "Staff" thing and it looks like they deleted the title... all titles really.
Best... Mike
-
What you have to weigh is the user impact. How much traffic are you currently getting from mobile devices? Will the desktop version of the website look awful, be hard to interact with or understand on a mobile phone or tablet device? You'll also lose the "mobile friendly" designation which might lower your rankings and click-thru rates.
It's a trade-off decision only you can make.
PS - I don't see "Staff" under your cool avatar.
-
Hi Donna,
Thanks for the insight and resource. What do you think of while waiting for the next year mobile responsive site, to 301 the two existing mobile sites to the desktop site? How would one begin to estimate the effect of that? Thanks, again.
Best... Mike
-
Michael,
I read a helpful article that touched on this exact topic yesterday. It's https://www.searchenginejournal.com/mobile-first-index-actually-mean/178017/ . As you've already pointed out, a responsive solution is best, but if the website's mobile and desktop content are the same, you may not have to do anything right away.
Check it out.
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
-
Google Indexing Of Pages As HTTPS vs HTTP
We recently updated our site to be mobile optimized. As part of the update, we had also planned on adding SSL security to the site. However, we use an iframe on a lot of our site pages from a third party vendor for real estate listings and that iframe was not SSL friendly and the vendor does not have that solution yet. So, those iframes weren't displaying the content. As a result, we had to shift gears and go back to just being http and not the new https that we were hoping for. However, google seems to have indexed a lot of our pages as https and gives a security error to any visitors. The new site was launched about a week ago and there was code in the htaccess file that was pushing to www and https. I have fixed the htaccess file to no longer have https. My questions is will google "reindex" the site once it recognizes the new htaccess commands in the next couple weeks?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vikasnwu1 -
Should I migrate .co.uk to .com?
I have previously searched the forum and could not find a definitive answer on this subject so would appreciate any guidance. I have just joined a new company, we have a .co.uk site which gets lots of traffic. We have a .com site which is targeting USA and .com/de/ targeting Germany. 'hreflang' is configured on the .com (between the USA and German sites) but not on .co.uk. This means that in the eyes of search engines (and Moz Pro) the 2 domains are competitors (and the .co.uk has much more presence than the .com in the USA). I know how to fix this and I am in the process of doing so. My question is whether it would make sense to migrate the .co.uk site to .com As previously mentioned the .co.uk site already does very well both in the UK and around the world (as our product is well known in our niche). As .co.uk can only primarily be targeted to UK would our global reach increase enough to justify migrating it to .com? We have dealers/distributors in maybe 30 countries and are continuing to expand, we will at point point add additional languages so my suggestion is that we migrate now as the authority of the .co.uk will help the emerging markets as well as increase our visibility in markets that are not currently primary targets. We are also in the process of hiring new staff specifically to focus on Content Marketing. So again this suggests having the 1 domain will make sense in the long run (as any value gained from content marketing success will be seen by all country/language focussed sites). I am also planning to rebuild the sites in the next few months as the current ones are not fit for purpose so the migration would coincide with this (I know this is not ideal). Apologies for the lengthy question, I hope the additional background information will help in providing some feedback to help me make the decision. David
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JamesCrossland0 -
Description vs meta description
I have an e-commerce website and am trying to create product category pages. I am under the impression that Description is the text that would appear under the title on a google search and I believe the meta description is just what google reads? Is having BOTH important or just description? Is it ok to duplicate the description for the meta description? I know its not good to duplicate descriptions on other products and pages.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nchachula0 -
Would it be better to Start Over vs doing a Website Migration?
Hey guys /gals I have a question please. I have a computer repair business that does extremely well in search and is on the front page of google for anything computer repair related. However, I am currently re-branding my company and have completely redesigned every aspect of the UI and the SEO Site structure as well as the fact that I have completely written vastly different content and different title tag lines and meta descriptions for each page. So basically when doing a migration we know that we want to keep our content, titles, headlines and meta descriptions the same as to not lose our page rank. Seeing that I have completely went against the grain in all directions on a much needed company re-branding and everything is completely different from the old site is it even worthwhile 301 redirecting my old urls to the new ones that would (best) correspond with the new? In the plainest English, would I do better at Ranking the New Website QUICKER without doing 301 redirects from the OLD to the NEW? In an EXTREME instance like what I have done, would the Domain Migration IMPEDED me ranking the new site seeing how nothing is the same? I have build a Rock solid SILO Site Architecture on the New site which is WordPress using the Thesis Framework and the old domain is built on JOOMLA 1.5 Thank fellas Marshall
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarshallThompson0 -
Outbound link to PDF vs outbound link to page
If you're trying to create a site which is an information hub, obviously linking out to authoritative sites is a good idea. However, does linking to a PDF have the same effect? e.g Linking to Google's SEO starter guide PDF, as opposed to linking to a google article on SEO. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | underscorelive0 -
301 or 302 Redirects to Mobile Site
When it's detected that a mobile device is accessing the site it has the ability to redirect from www.example.com to m.example.com. Does it make more sense to employ a 301 or 302 redirect here? Google says a 301 but does not explain why (although usually I stick to "when in doubt, 301") . It seems like a 302 would prevent passing link juice to the mobile site and having mobile-optimized results also showing up in Google's index. What is the preference here?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOTGT0 -
.com and .edu difference
Hello, Can anyone tell me how big is the difference between a PR5 .com and a PR5 .edu Double, triple? How big? Cornel
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cornel_Ilea0 -
Site Architecture: Cross Linking vs. Siloing
I'm curious to know what other mozzers think about silo's... Can we first all agree that a flat site architecture is the best practice? Relevant pages should be grouped together. Shorter, broader and (usually) therefore higher volume keywords should be towards the top of each category. Navigation should flow from general to specific. Agreed? As Google say's on page 10 of their SEO Starter Guide, "you should think about how visitors will go from a general page (your root page) to a page containing more specific content ." OK, we all agree so far, right? Great! Enter my question: Bruce Clay (among others) seem to recommend siloing as a best practice. While Richard Baxter (and many others @ SEOmoz), seem to view silos as a problem. Me? I've practiced (relevant) internal cross linking, and have intentionally avoided siloing in almost all cases. What about you? Is there a time and place to use silos? If so, when and where? If not, how do we rectify the seemingly huge differences of opinions between expert folks such as Baxter and Clay?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DonnieCooper7