My client is using a mobile template for their local pages and the Google search console is reporting thousands of duplicate titles/meta descriptions

[RosemaryB]

So my client has 2000+ different store locations.  Each location has the standard desktop location and my client opted for a corresponding mobile template for each location.   Now the Google search console is reporting thousands of duplicate titles/meta descriptions.  However this is only because the mobile template and desktop store pages are using the exact same title/meta description tag.

Is Google penalizing my client for this?  Would it be worth it to update the mobile template title/meta description tags?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Rosemary,

Is Google penalizing my client for this?

Does it look like there is any penalty going on?

What you need to do is add a rel=alternate from the desktop location pages to the mobile versions and a rel=canonical from the mobile page back to the desktop version. This should remedy all duplication issues and send Google the correct signals at the same time.

What Google says...

1. On the desktop page, add a special link rel=”alternate” tag pointing to the corresponding mobile URL. This helps Googlebot discover the location of your site’s mobile pages.
2. On the mobile page, add a link rel=”canonical” tag pointing to the corresponding desktop URL.

You can read the information you need that matches your separate page format here on Google.

This should fix all issues.

-Andy

[RosemaryB]

Excellent advice. Thanks Andy!