SEO Tips for Different URL structure Desktop VS Mobile

If you have the separate mobile eCommerce website, it means that you have got different URLs for the mobile & desktop, your SEO needs a bit more effort. Thanks to mobile-first index of Google— that ranks your desktop & mobile websites based on the signals from your site — and implementing annotation metadata & redirects is important than before.

Using separate URLs site structure, the devices can be detected by investigating HTTP headers & then redirected to the desktop or the mobile version of a website that is built with various HTML & CSS. In such a case, the mobile website uses the mobile-specific URL that is generally m-dot, and dot-Mobi, and the separate folder. As per the common myth, the approach leads to duplicate content, which harms SEO & causes user confusion. But this will not happen if you ensure that your pages have got 1:1 mobile equivalent. In order, to prevent the duplication you have to signal the relationship of both the versions by including the ‘rel=canonical’ links of mobile pages & ‘rel=alternate’ links of desktop pages.

The eCommerce website owners generally tend to dismiss mobile shopping, since there are lesser conversions on smartphones. However, mobile shopping is increasing. From last some years, shoppers on mobile devices accounted for over 60% of traffic as well as 40% of sales on the internet. Thus optimizing the website for the mobile search must be one top priority. Search even today remains the gateway for shoppers. So, whenever they want to fit finding the gift ideas or making purchases in their busy lives, they Google on their phones. These shoppers will not find the website when they are desperate to make the quick gift decision in case it is not optimized for the mobile search.

Irrespective, here is the summary of how the mobile-first indexing will impact some websites:

Only Desktop Version

Suppose your website does not have the mobile-friendly version, then there is not any impact. Mobile version of the website is the same as the desktop version.

Responsive Web Design

As I mentioned, if you adopted the responsive style of the web design for pages, you are safe. Your website can adjust itself as per the screen size it’s getting viewed on. The mobile-first indexing may not have any bearing on the search rankings.

Canonical AMP

If your site and its pages are created using the AMP HTML, you have got nothing to worry over. As mobile & desktop versions of the website are same, and mobile-first indexing has got no impact.

Different URLs

At times desktop URLs have got the different and equivalent URL that serves the users with the mobile-optimized content. It is what we call it as an m-dot site. Suppose that sounds your business, yes, mobile indexing can impact the search rankings. To prepare for this you must try to follow some top mobile SEO practices available.

Automatic Redirection

The automatic redirection is highly complicated. You want the server to detect shopper’s user agent that are requesting the page —like Chrome desktop browser and mobile Safari browser —or serve the right mobile and desktop version whenever he enters on your website. It is “HTTP redirect.” The redirects also can be done in the JavaScript for such purpose, however, they are much slower than the HTTP redirects and, must be the secondary option. In such a way, shoppers making use of the smartphone will get redirected to the mobile version of a site, even though they type and click the desktop URL.

Redirects work in just one direction, generally from the desktop to mobile, will be “unidirectional redirects.” “The bidirectional redirects” are much better, but, as they make sure that the shoppers on desktop computer requesting the mobile URL will be redirected to the desktop version. Redirect to the relevant page for the device type. In the footer, include the HTML links between different versions of the same page. The links allow the shoppers to select the version of a site —mobile or desktop. Occasionally it is very helpful to use the desktop version of the website from the mobile device for the additional functionality and content.

For such reason, it is very important to redirect on the device type on the entry page. After the first page, if a visitor selects the type that doesn’t match her device, your website has to honor such desire.