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SEO problems with running desktop and mobile site


northwalesinks

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A question for you guru's about the mobile version of the Cubecart site that has been raised by my SEO "expert" - at least that's what he tells me ;)

He spotted the link on the bottom of my home page that goes to the mobile site and followed this to, as he said to me, "see what it did".  He is telling me that the two versions have the same address (in my case http://www.northwalesinks.com/store/index.php ) but have two completely different lots of content - my desktop site has a chunk of text that has been "carefully crafted" on the home page while the mobile version is missing this text.

His argument goes :-

  • The search engines visit the desktop site and read the content and index it
  • They see the link at the bottom of the page for the mobile site and follow it - the link does have the display_mobile parameter set but this parameter vanishes when you follow the link and navigate around the mobile site
  • They read the mobile site at the same address and find different content !
  • They index the "new" content and see a link at the bottom to the desktop site
  • They follow this  link and see different content (again)
  • They throw their toys out of the cot and decide that that page isn't worth worrying about as it never knows which content it's going to find - and apart from which it breaks the rule that Google say that the content they read should be the same as the content displayed to a visitor when they follow a result and might be considered as cloaking https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66355?hl=en
  • I vanish from the search engine results !


Can anyone tell me if he is right?  I've sat next to him while he explained it and demonstrated the "problem" and he seems to be right enough that I'm worried (and at the size of the bill for spotting this *grins* ).

 
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Your logo is not responding correctly in my test of the mobile version. Other than the homepage content, is there anything else that does not show properly in Mobile view?

 

I've checked our estates kurouto site, and our logo does not fit any more, either. And our Homepage content is gone. Still looking for what else may be missing.

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I see the mobile version and the desktop version both works and the address is different (maybe you fixed this issue in the meantime).

 

About your logo for mobile ... you can re size the logo and modify the source of the mobile template then insert the path name where your modified logo is for your mobile version.

 

Now according to your SEO "expert" ... i don't agree with the arguments. 

 

The search engines visit the desktop site and read the content and index it
 
​Well this is not actually true. Maybe some search engines, but in general we are focusing on Google and Google is very smart for indexing websites. The google bot has also triggers to block mobile content or to allow mobile content. However in general search engines is indexing desktops pages yes, but it doesn't mean they wont rank on mobiles.
 
They see the link at the bottom of the page for the mobile site and follow it - the link does have the display_mobile parameter set but this parameter vanishes when you follow the link and navigate around the mobile site
 
I didn't see this problem while i was browsing both versions?
 
They read the mobile site at the same address and find different content !
 
You can always create a subdomain like mobile.domain.com and show the mobile content there ... but like i said Google is smart enough for understanding and you can trigger the Google bots mobile wise.
 
They index the "new" content and see a link at the bottom to the desktop site
 
Not sure what this means.
 
They throw their toys out of the cot and decide that that page isn't worth worrying about as it never knows which content it's going to find - and apart from which it breaks the rule that Google say that the content they read should be the same as the content displayed to a visitor when they follow a result and might be considered as cloaking
 
Ridiculous statement
 
I vanish from the search engine results !
 
Vanishing from search engines is not that common unless you give them a reason for it. But if i read the story from your SEO expert i shouldn't worry for vanishing from Google. In general all SEO "experts" will tell you different stories about who is wrong or right, but i will wish you goodluck with that :)
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The way to fix the logo is in CC. You need to create another logo sized about 250 wide and designate it only for the Mobile skin. I've had that set in the past, but somewhere along the way an update has "lost" it. All I had to do was put the green check and designate Mobile, and my logo is now responsive.

 

But I'm still losing documents and sidebar boxes that the Mobile skin template seems to say should be showing somewhere, but it's not.

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"About your logo for mobile ... you can re size the logo and modify the source of the mobile template then insert the path name where your modified logo is for your mobile version."

 

In the Store Settings, Logos tab, you can upload a specific and appropriately sized logo, then assign that logo to the mobile skin. No need to edit the mobile skin code.

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I know you feeling after i used many shopping carts ... while updating you can lose settings and custom work.

 

It is better to write every step of every change you made and think how you can fix it after a update messed it up.

 

Most of the time i use cronjobs to eject codes into lines when i lose something or i manually change it.

 

I also have a lot of custom work and when there is an update i enable my cronjob and wait for next update :)

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Hi Masterunix,

My SEO guy has said the following to your reply...

Googlebot has triggers to block or allow mobile content - this isn't 

true and has never been true where Google is concerned.  If it was they 

wouldn't have released an update a while ago that aimed to "penalise" 

sites where the mobiles sites are not working.  Neither would they have 

several bots including ones that emulate Samsung, Nokia and Sumsung phones.

He wasn't referring to ranking on mobiles, he was talking about the 

difference between the mobile and desktop sites.

Go to the bottom of my home page and there is a link saying "mobile 

site" - hover over the link and it says 

"http://www.northwalesinks.com/store/index.php?display_mobile=1", click 

on the link and it goes to http://www.northwalesinks.com/store/index.php 

which has a canonical tag of <link 

href="http://www.northwalesinks.com/store/" rel="canonical"> which tells 

the search engines such as Google to treat the address as not having the 

"index.php" on the end.

Yes a sub-domain (or even a sub-folder) could be created and hold the 

mobile site - however that might be considered as duplicate content if 

the two "sites" were the same.

Look at the bottom of the mobile page and there is a link to the desktop 

site.  Remember that Google will have read the mobile page at this point 

so will be looking at adding it to it's index (indexing the content) 

that is used to provide the SEO results.

A ridiculous statement huh?  You weren't around several years ago when 

Google banned BMW from the search results because they were presenting 

different results to their bot than they were to human visitors to the 

site.  The link that was in my first post clearly says that this is 

something you shouldn't do and if Google sees different content on the 

same address it may well consider that something odd is going on 

especially if the pattern of Google visits goes something like :-

Desktop page - see the whole content

Desktop page - see the whole content (so far so good)

Mobile page - see the reduced content on the same address

Desktop page - see the whole content

Mobile page - see the reduced content.... and so on

Which version of the content on the page are they going to "index" and 

how long before they figure that the content keeps changing and isn't 

trusted ? 1.gif

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I'm FAR from knowledgeable, but something HAS to be wrong with the logic that Google would penalize a shortened mobile view page.

 

Our Plush Memories Lost Toy Search Service is Wordpress site that uses Weaver II Pro skin. That skin allows for ALL KINDS of variations in what shows on the mobile site, but defaults to a very streamlined version. Weaver skins are some of the most used and trusted on Wordpress, and Yoast's SEO WP plugin compatibility is included in the skin.

 

What I'm trying to say is that there are far too many Weaver skin WP sites for their streamlined Mobile version of the skin to be penalized by Google without WP users screaming about it and abandoning Weaver.

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In general we need to be honest that ALL SEO experts will tell you a different story.

 

And if you studied SEO by your self (using books even if its a for dummies book) SEO will change now and then. Techniques that work today can be different by next week. Thats the reason why we never work with permanent SEO companies or people. We always hire freelancers when its needed.

 

I studied SEO myself and i am keeping up 2 date so i understand new techniques as well, but even i need experts sometimes.

 

In your sutation we cant say i am wrong or your SEO guy is right ... SEO change everyday and "SEO experts" want cash.

 

They make customers scared for being banned from Google, because they are the best company in the world and they know how to prevent this (if you pay them ofcourse).

 

I would say stick with the basics and IF you are banned, then you hire a professional ... a professional can even fix banned websites within weeks (i played also with websites for SEO study and i never was banned longer then 1 week sometimes within 48 hours can be fixed).

 

So lets go back to your story ... Cubecart is a very great webshop platform it works technically and functionally they worked it all out.

 

We should not be afraid of mobile website, double content or any bans from Google.

 

But if you follow SEO tricks ... yes you can make it better, but being banned for using Cubecart ? No that is really ridiculous.

 

Correct me if i dont understand your story, but i think your first question on this topic was that your SEO expet spotted some theories about Cubecart that is not good for Google?

 

We rank very great using Cubecart (Desktop and Mobile wise) and Google is not seeing our website as double content. Google understand Cubecart to index Desktop as Desktop and Mobile as Mobile.

 

So yes subdomains like mobile.domain.com to use as mobile website work great and yes you need to add the canonical link in your desktop version.

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