Desktop vs. Mobile Website - ranking impact
-
Working on develop mobile pages using dynamic serving method, we are planing on only develop number of important pages (not the whole site) to be mobile friendly. To keep the consistency of the user experience, the new mobile site will only have internal links to pages that are mobile friend.
Questions:
If an existing non-mobile page ranking #1 on mobile SERP today, this page will not have a mobile friendly version, and will not link in the mobilefriendly site. will there be any impact to the ranking. Assuming: When Google mobile/Smartphone bots will not see a link to this page. The page will still accessible to Google desktop bots.
-
Hi Tom, this will likely impact your mobile rankings, as the smartphone crawler is the one which primarily feeds the mobile index. Best practice would say to make the mobile content as close to the desktop version as possible, but I understand that sometimes the resources are simply not available.
My concern would be that if you remove all internal links to the pages, the crawler will no longer find that page in new crawls and may eventually remove it from the mobile index, or may discount the importance of the page. Of course, if it isn't mobile friendly, you may end up losing rankings anyway if competitors create a more mobile-friendly experience.
A couple thoughts:
-
is the page getting valuable traffic from that position 1 ranking? If so, I'd strongly suggest including it on your list of pages to make mobile-friendly. If not, perhaps it doesn't matter if it loses the high ranking.
-
you could create a sitemap which includes those pages, so that the crawler can discover them even if they're not linked to internally. I don't know that this will prevent a negative impact but it could aid discovery.
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
-
Would you redirect Website A to Website B, when Website B is in the middle of a HTTP=>HTTPS migration?
Hey guys, I'm curious on your thoughts around this scenario... Website A: 35,000 monthly pageviews 1,000 pages 375 root linking domains currently HTTPS focused on one topic weak rankings for competitive keywords Website B: 3M monthly pageviews 32,500 pages 3,500 root linking domains started HTTP to HTTPS migration 1 week ago. 1/3 of pages indexed as HTTPS. focused on many topics strong rankings for competitive keywords Requirement: I want to have a reliable read on how Website A's keyword rankings change after redirecting it's pages to Website A. This post-migration analysis will be used as a basis to assess the risk of redirecting another website we own that is similar to Website A into Website B. My question: Would you wait until most of the pages on Website B are indexed as HTTPS before doing a 301 of Website A to Website B? Please back up your answer with reasons why or why not 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jeremycabral0 -
Redirecting M Dot Mobile Website to Responsive Design Website Questions
Hi amazing Moz community 🙂 Couldn't find this question anywhere, and knew this was the place to ask! We are helping a client redirect an M Dot website to a Responsive Design website. We want to retain our mobile rankings for keywords. Three questions - We should use 301 redirects from the M Dot website to the new website correct? (not 302s?) How long does it take for Google to understand that we have launched a responsive website? Can we remove the 301 redirects after a few days (if the M Dot website interferes/breaks the new Responsive website)? We have verified an account on Google Search Console for the M Dot website, along with a mobile sitemap that has been submitted and verified. What should we do with this M Dot GSC account? Just delete it? Or keep it and upload the NEW XML Sitemap with the new WWW links (because the website is responsive). THANK YOU!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | accpar0 -
Removing .html from URLs - impact of rankings?
Good evening Mozzers. Couple of questions which I hope you can help with. Here's the first. I am wondering, are we likely to see ranking changes if we remove the .html from the sites URLs. For example website.com/category/sub-category.html Change to: website.com/category/sub-category/ We will of course make sure we 301 redirect to the new, user friendly URLs, but I am wondering if anyone has had previous experience of implementing this change and how it has effected rankings. By having the .html in the URLs, does this stop link juice being flowed back to the root category? Second question: If one page can be loaded with and without a forward slash "/" at the end, is this a duplicate page, or would Google consider this as the same page? Would like to eliminate duplicate content issues if this is the case. For example: website.com/category/ and website.com/category Duplicate content/pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jseddon920 -
New websites
Hi Moz community, My company updated and used a new developer to build and re-design their charity websites: www.runforcharity.com, www.cycleforcharity.com and www.sportforcharity.com. This sites were "re-launched" at the beggining of December 2015 and I have now been able to get a good 6 weeks worth of data. I've been religiously using Moz.com for a couple of years and I use it simply for SEO purposes. Our websites are built upon organic traffic being driven to them and I have noticed that the PA on the new sites has taken a hammering. They all appear to have a PA of 1 and I'm at a loss why? It appears that no page has h1 text? Would this be an issue with the developer or something the content team is doing wrong? Any help of advice would be much appreciated. Many thanks Ryan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bennerya0 -
Launching 20 new URLs to branch out from a multi brand website. How do I make sure the rankings stay?
I have a client with a multiple brand website currently. The site has landing pages and directories for each of its 20 brands under one URL. The plan is to build 20 separate brand websites with new domains and have the old content redirect to its corresponding new URL. The problem that I envision is being able to successfully carry all of the existing indexed content over while only using 301 redirects and submitting the new domains to Webmaster tools. Has anyone done this in the past successfully and do you have any recommendations?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Empower_MediaMarketing0 -
Looking for guidance on transferring and incorporating content from a purchased website into an existing website
One of my client’s recently purchased a competitor’s website, and we would like to transfer the content from the competitor’s website (http://www.wilson-hardness.com) to our client’s existing website (http://www.buehler.com); at the same time we want to minimize loss in keyword rankings the competitor’s website has established. The two websites work in similar fields: one measures and offers products in scientific measurement and analysis of various materials. The other website offers products that are in similar field: hardness testing equipment. Looking for suggestions on how to proceed or recommended reading on the topic. I’ve tried to do research, but haven’t found anything, so I’m not sure what to topic-names to search. Any guidance would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TopFloor0 -
A challenge! What off-page strategies would you employ first when ranking a brand new small business website?
I'd love to hear what you guys do. I think the game has changed now in the era of Penguin. Gone are the days where you can build a few quick links and suddenly your new site is ranking fairly well. Obviously, the first steps are to get the on page SEO right - titles, good keyword use, etc. Eventually, the goal may be to build some content that will attract natural links. But, we all know that is going to take time. So, here's the scenario: You've got a new client with a website in a fairly non-competitive niche, say, a piano mover in Seattle. The site is indexed, with no external backlinks. You're happy with the current on page SEO. The site is currently ranking on page 3 for "Seattle Piano Mover". What would you do next?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarieHaynes0 -
In mobile searches, does Google recognize HTML5 sites as mobile sites?
Does Google recognize HTML5 sites using responsive design as mobile sites? I know that for mobile searches, Google promotes results on mobile sites. I'm trying to determine if my site, created in HTML5 with responsive design falls into that category. Any insights on the topic would be very helpful.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BostonWright0