What's the best way to redirect mobile site?

[DirectAsia.com]

Hi,

We have a mobile website using a sub-directory domain.com/m/whatever-page/. Our mobile is completely separate site from desktop version.

What's the best way to handle the redirection from mobile visitors and those that are searching from mobile and see desktop version in the search result?

Appreciate anyone's expert advise.

Thanks,
Willy

[LesleyPaone]

The best way is to ask. With the ever changing landscape of devices, automatically redirecting is falling out of favor. I would use a cookied little bar at the bottom of the page that asks if they want to view the mobile site. Let them select or close it and have it expire after the session.

One thing to keep in mind, google wants you to redirect to the same mobile page. Like if a user is on site.com/products/nifty-hair-gizmo.html don't redirect them to m.site.com, redirect them to m.site.com/products/nifty-hair-gizmo.html

The reason that automatically redirecting is falling out is because of devices like the new chrome cast and how other phones are set up. I might browse to your site on my phone and be casting it to my 46" lcd and you would never know. But I am going to be irritated if I have to look at your site in a mobile version on my tv.

[DirectAsia.com]

Thanks Leslie, interesting and useful considerations.

[DirectAsia.com]

Just to add to our original question. It seems pretty clear that device detection is accomplished by user agent detection. Under our original plan to redirect visitors on mobiles to a new URL which carries the mobile version of the page, how should that redirection be accomplished in a search engine compatible fashion? What type of redirection should be used?

I suspect we'll need to continue with our plan to redirect to a different URL for now, but am concerned that this needs to happen in a way which won't harm our SEO.

many thanks in advance for any help with this ....

[KristinaKledzik]

The best way to handle redirects is to use a 301 or 302 redirect (this is probably the only time in SEO that either gives the same result) based on user agent detection.

Is that enough detail?

[KristinaKledzik]

I disagree with Lesley, saying that you should just ask. I would recommend that you redirect to the mobile version of the the site, then ask. Basically: get people onto the page that you're 90% sure they want to be on, but let them switch back and forth. Just add a link to the footer of the deskop and mobile sites letting people switch between the two.

He's correct about redirecting to the right page, though. Don't redirect all of your desktop pages to the mobile homepage. When Google ranks your desktop pages on mobile search results, it checks out the redirect to mobile content. If the mobile content isn't similar, the page won't rank in mobile.

[KristinaKledzik]

I've responded to specific comments below, but here's the information you need to redirect: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details

The gist is, you need:

• 301 or 302 redirects from the desktop site to the mobile site, based on user agent detection
• Rel="canonical" tag on each mobile page pointing to to each desktop page
• Rel="alternate" tag on each desktop page pointing to each mobile page
• A Vary HTTP header
• A mobile sitemap

As I mentioned below, I also recommend that you have a link at the bottom of the mobile and desktop sites pointing to the other version. That way, if you get the redirects wrong, people can self correct.