Would an automatic redirect to itunes affect SEO?

[maxweb]

We recently started working on a website and most of the work done so far is resolving onsite technical issues (duplicate content, duplicate titles, broken links, pagespeed, grammar, etc.). Everything done has been positive, but their position in SERPs has actually gone down. I'm having a look to see if anything I have done could have had a negative effect.

However, when visiting their website on a mobile device, it automatically redirects you to iTunes so that you can download their app. My first instinct is that this is a horrendous idea as it would result in a massive bounce rate which would be impossible to track. I have tried convincing them to do it differently, but this is how they want it. However, when googlebot visits the website as a mobile it returns an error. I'm fairly sure that this would have a negative effect on search results but I could do with a second opinion.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I would be more concerned about the impact on users. This is like visiting a site and being forwarded to those annoying games. A real pet hate of mine.

I would be tempted to show them this post from Google on sneaky redirects, as it falls into this category: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/webmaster-guidelines-for-sneaky.html

Anything that takes a user from an expected page to an unexpected one, is going to have a number of negative impacts.

The polite thing to do, is provide a "Download this app now" button that is easily seen.

-Andy

[Andy-Halliday]

Hi

I would have to agree with Andy in terms of user experience - what most sites I visit tend to do is to have a section at the top - which says download the app now, rather than taking u directly to the Apple Store - I would just bounce straight off, no way would I download an app without reviewing some of the content first.

You may also want to read: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2721217 I don't think you will be seen as sneaky redirect (unless Google classify Apple.com as spammy url) as they say if you are trying to deceive Google, but it probably not helping.

[maxweb]

Thanks guys.

I'm aware of the negative effect on user experience and I tried to convince them to replace the redirect with a banner, but they refused. If I has some evidence that suggested that having the direct was having an effect on SERPs and therefore the number of potential customers they attract then I might be able to convince them better.

I need a complete report telling them why they should reinstate their website on mobile devices and remove the redirect or they won't listen. Dreadful user experience is a start, but the website is now almost invisible in mobile SERPs which is a serious issue. However, I'm not sure if this would affect the desktop SERPs (although I know that user experience is taken into account).

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Here is something that might be worth showing them Mark. Matt Cutts was talking about this exact matter last month.
http://www.seroundtable.com/google-mobile-seo-desktop-18271.html

There doesn't appear to be a clear cut answer here - if there is one, Google aren't confirming one way or the other, but i would certainly be erring on the side of caution.

-Andy

[katemorris]

I'm going to endorse Andy's answer as well as adding one here. His link to Matt's video is what I would add, but I wanted to address the redirect affecting ranking. The redirect is basically ensuring that you won't show in results for mobile users. You need a page to rank to even attempt to rank. You are sending the signal now that itunes is the right page for users, so that page will rank. The redirect is most certainly impacting your performance mobile and desktop. iTunes has desktop accessible pages as well and you are pointing your authority to them.

Beyond that, there haven't been studies that I know of proving this just because it's a bad user experience on top of a bad search decision.