How do you link your adaptive mobile site to Google Analytics?
-
With Google now saying they're putting a lot more emphasis on mobile sites, we recently got notifications from Google Webmaster Tools saying that some of our pages are not built for mobile. Some of these pages, however have an adaptive page that when you visit from a mobile phone (m.mysite.com), you're taken to instead of the desktop version.
My question is, how do I let Google know that I have an adaptive site and not get penalized for poor mobile usability? I already have Google Analytics on the mobile site, I just need to somehow let Webmaster tools / Google's web crawlers know that they should be looking to my mobile site for usability, not the desktop site.
Any advice is appreciated!
-
I was just addressing that few days ago.
Google have been kind enough to provide a very detailed guide on how to do that: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/configurations/separate-urls
You need to annotate your html accordingly, all the details are there, just read it.
-
You're welcome. If your goal is to maintain and grow the rankings associated with the desktop version of your site in mobile, one of the best ways to do so currently is by using a responsive frame work. From a user perspective that sort of site is serving mobile, tablet, and desktop all from the same URLs. Something like Layers would be an example for Wordpress (http://www.layerswp.com) while Squarespace (http://www.squarespace.com/) is a common example in the smaller site realm. If you're thinking of transitioning over a larger site it'd definitely be more of a dev-based commitment. Currently Google houses the bulk of its guides on this here: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/.
-
Thanks, Ryan. Do you know what you're supposed to do if you don't have a 1 to 1 relationship of all your desktop pages to your mobile site? Our mobile site is much smaller than our desktop version. Thanks!!
-
That definitely answered my question, thanks!!
-
You can also test the m.mysite.com version of your site in Google's PageSpeed Insights here: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ and then scroll to the bottom of the mobile portion of the score and see your usability score there as well. This is handy for breaking out a score from GWT. Is the m.mysite.com domain also listed in GWT?
Ideally you'd be able to have a 1 to 1 relationship from desktop pages to your mobile site as that would be the clearest signal that the two are tied together closely and only separated for usability purposes. The video Chris linked to also has quite a few additional insights from Matt Cutts, so worth the watch. Cheers!
-
Matt Cutts from Google addressed this in a short Youtube video you can watch here. I hope that helps!
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
-
Does "google selected canonical" pass link juice the same as "user selected canonical"?
We are in a bit of a tricky situation since a key top-level page with lots of external links has been selected as a duplicate by Google. We do not have any canonical tag in place. Now this is fine if Google passes the link juice towards the page they have selected as canonical (an identical top-level page)- does anyone know the answer to this question? Due to various reasons, we can't put a canonical tag ourselves at this moment in time. So my question is, does a Google selected canonical work the same way and pass link juice as a user selected canonical? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Lewald10 -
Google Indexing Desktop & Mobile Versions
We have a relatively new site and I have noticed recently that Google seems to be indexing both the mobile and the desktop version of our site. There are some queries where the mobile version will show up and sometimes both mobile and desktop show up. This can't be good. I would imagine that what is supposed to happen is that the desktop version is the one that should be indexed (always) and browser detection will load the mobile version where appropriate once the user is on the site. Do you have any advice on what we should do to solve this problem as we are a bit stuck?
Technical SEO | | simonukss0 -
Site's IP showing WMT 'Links to My Site'
I have been going through, disavowing spam links in WMT and one of my biggest referral sources is our own IP address. Site: Covers.com
Technical SEO | | evansluke
IP: 208.68.0.72 We have recently fixed a number of 302 redirects, but the number of links actually seems to be increasing. Is this something I should ignore / disavow / fix using a redirect?0 -
Why is my site crawled so much more in Bing then in Google?
I recently setup Cloudflare so I can see how much my site is being crawled. It looks like Bing is crawling me about 3 times as much as Google. Any ideas on why that would be or what I should check?
Technical SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
Google Links
I am assuming that the list presented by Google Webmaster tools (TRAFFIC | Links To Your Site) is the one that will actually be used by Google for indexing ? There seem to be quite a few links that there that should not be there. ie Assumed NOFOLLOW links. Am I working under an incorrect assumption that all links in webmaster tools are actually followed ?
Technical SEO | | blinkybill0 -
Google has not been visiting my site
Hi I am working on a site at the moment http://www.cheapflightsgatwick.com and i had the site using a different template and in the search engines for the search term cheap flights gatwick we were fourth and for the term holiday magazine we were 12th in google but now we are not even in google on the first page for the search terms. But now after changing the template in joomla our rankings have gone out of the window. It took me about a day to sort out the site with the new template so i was not expecting any problems with the search engines but for some reason there is. If you put into the search engine www.cheapflightsgatwick.com then you will see that google has not visited the site for four days and also it is not showing the description and instead it is showing details about joomla. Can anyone let me know if there is anything i need to do to sort this out and why google is taking so long to visit my site
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Will Google index a 301 redirect for a new site?
So here is the problem... We have setup a 301redirect for our clients website. When you search the clients name it comes up with the old .co.uk website. We have made this redirect to the new .com website. However on the SERPs when it shows the .co.uk it shows the old title pages which currently say 'Holding Page'. When you click on that link it takes you to the fully functioning .com website. My question is, will the title tags in the SERPs which show the .co.uk update to the new ones from the .com? I'm thinking it will be just a case of Google catching up on things and it will sort itself out eventually. If anyone could help I would REALLY appreciate it. Thanks Chris
Technical SEO | | Weerdboil0 -
How long does it take for customized Google Site Search to show results from pdf files?
The site in question is http://www.ejmh.eu I am pretty unsatisfied with the results I am getting from the Site Search provided by Google. We have over 160 pdf files in this subfolder: http://www.ejmh.eu/mellekletek The files are the digital versions of articles. When I search for content in those pdf files, Google does not show results. It does show results from older pages, dating back 1-2 years but it is certainly not showing anything from pdf files that I have just put up 3 weeks ago. My questions: If I place a Google Search on a site, does it not automatically display results from ALL the content in the root domain? Is there any correlation between how the Site Search is indexing the files and how Google is indexing the urls in general? Should I just wait and see whether site search performance improves or should I switch to another Search software like Zoom Search? It is vital to have a proper, high-quality search functioning on that site in the very near future. What are your experiences? Any tips are greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Lauroca0