6. searchmarketingexpo.com
@AdamWhittles
#SMX #24B
“36% of mobile web search results vary from desktop, with
23% showing pages from completely different sites”
Data provided by SearchMetrics from their 2014 US Google Ranking Factors Study
16. searchmarketingexpo.com
@AdamWhittles
#SMX #24B
Choosing a mobile setup
Responsive Separate URLs Dynamic Serving
• ALL devices
• 1 URL
• Same Content/HTML
• Use CSS to render pages
• Separate Mobile & Desktop URLs
example.com/m/
m.example.com
• Different HTML
• All devices
• 1 URL
• different HTML (and CSS) depending
on user agent (desktop or mobile
device)
Pros
• 1 URL
• Easier to maintain
• Link Consolidation
• No Redirects > Reduce Loading Time
• Recommended By Google (saves
resources, pages crawled once)
• Better Mobile Experience
• Faster
• Dedicated Mobile Content
• Easier Implementation
• 1 URL
• Link Consolidation
• Capacity for different mobile content
Cons
• Slower
• All content is downloaded whether it is
used or not. This can be problematic for
image intensive websites
• Same Mobile/Desktop Content
• Link Equity Dilution
• Higher Cost to maintain
• Crawled Multiple Times with
different user agents
• Slower
• Higher Cost to maintain
• Old Redirect Lists
• Complex technical implementation
• Crawled Multiple Times
SEO
• Check Google Webmaster Tools Crawl
Errors for Redirect & 404 Errors
• Check Page Load Time for Mobile and
Desktop
• Allow Search Engines to crawl all assets
(CSS, Images, JS)
• Redirect Mobile Users and Bots to
the mobile site
• Test Desktop Site for Redirects &
404 Errors
• Add Rel=Alternate to desktop and
rel=Canonical to mobile site
• XML Mobile Sitemaps
• Use user-agent vary header to help
search bots to find your mobile
content
• Test for Vary: User-Agent HTTP
Header
Source (modified): John Shehata, Executive Director of Search at ABC News
19. searchmarketingexpo.com
@AdamWhittles
#SMX #24B
Questions to consider when deciding
which mobile setup to use
1. How much budget do you have?
2. How much engineering/technical resource do you have available?
3. Do users interact differently between your mobile and desktop sites?
4. Do you need a fast website based on your target audience search
behaviour?
5. Is your content designed for sharing?
6. Do you use a CDN to speed up content delivery?
7. Does your content rely heavily on images or picture galleries?
