Should I redirect mobile traffic to a different url? Will it hurt SEO?

[SamCUK]

I'm working on a site that has lots of great content and ranks well but essentially the money is generated by affiliate links. I don't have a mobile version of the site but the company I'm affiliated with does offer a mobile redirect to their domain. Will redirecting mobile traffic to a different url hurt my SEO? I think the user will get a better experience by landing on a mobile page but I don't know if google will see it like that.

Any thoughts?

[guillermoga]

Hi Samuel,

Google won't penalize you in any way if you redirect mobile users to another URL. Here you can find Google's Recommendations for building smartphone-optimized websites.

The best way to go for them is building a responsive design, but as you can see, Google encourages mobile redirections too. 

[SamCUK]

Thanks for your reply. I makes sense to me to have users land on a mobile page but just to clarify I'd be redirecting mobile traffic to a completely different domain not just a different URL. Will that be a problem?

[guillermoga]

I don't think you will have any problem. It won't be a doorway page or something like that because you are not deceiving the users, you are actually showing them the information they are requesting in the best possible way.

[bridget.randolph]

Hi Samuel,

I understand why it makes sense from a user experience perspective, although I'd be a little concerned that it would be a bit weird, especially if the domains are branded differently.

I'd probably start by avoiding an automatic redirect. The simplest option is probably to include a prominent CTA on the desktop version that says 'view mobile version at www.otherdomain.com'. If you want to get a bit fancier, you could display a message when a mobile user agent is detected, saying something like 'it looks like you're on a mobile device. Would you like to view a mobile-friendly version of this page?'.  If you do this, make sure that

• a) the page is still accessible to a crawler with a mobile user agent (in other words, don't require input from the mobile user in order to view the desktop version, just include it as an option)
• b) use a cookie to avoid asking your mobile users to answer the question again every time they visit.

If you really want to do the redirect, start by testing on just a couple pages to check for any negative impact before rolling it out further.