Is a mobile domain necessary?

[md3]

Greetings all,

I'm starting to build a mobile version of our website to be ready for April 21st.

Question is: is it absolutely necessary to have a mobile domain name or can I just direct users to same domain/folder? in other words:  www.mywebsite.com/mobile vs m.mywebsite.com - does this even matter?

As always, thank you!

[RyanPurkey]

The same domain with a folder is perfectly fine and often recommended. See: http://moz.com/blog/subdomains-vs-subfolders-rel-canonical-vs-301-how-to-structure-links-optimally-for-seo-whiteboard-friday. Cheers!

[md3]

Ah, there we go. Perfect. Thank you Ryan -  Guess I should have done a bit more research before asking

I appreciate it!

[RyanPurkey]

You're welcome. Misses happen even with more research so it's nice to have a place to ask. Cheers!

[md3]

Thanks Ryan...and just to follow up on this - got the mobile site working in a folder - Do I need to create a separate sitemap.xml for the mobile section of the website or do I just include the mobile pages on my current sitemap?

Thank you!

[RyanPurkey]

You can do either option for the sitemap file.  Kate Morris has a nice post around using multiple sitemaps here: http://moz.com/blog/multiple-xml-sitemaps-increased-indexation-and-traffic but it's mostly a question of site size.  Congrats on getting your mobile site up and running!