SEO domain structure on mobile devices

Search engine optimization focuses on mobile devices is not substantially different from traditional SEO, it keeps the principles of importance and popularity. However, robots are different and there are additional considerations to take into account about traceability, usability and indexability.

A very important aspect of SEO strategy for a mobile site is the domain structure of the mobile site. In this case, the concept of “domain structure” simply refers to where and how the mobile web site pages will be organized and indexed on the Internet. There are three basic domains options for a mobile site

A separated mobile website in a different domain than the main website

A separated mobile website is hosted on a different domain than the main website and works in a completely separately way from the main website. Companies often choose this option separating its mobile website of its main website. They usually shorten the name of the main domain to facilitate the search through a mobile device (smaller keyboard).

A separated mobile website can be beneficial when it is used in conjunction with offline marketing channels that lead mobile traffic to the site, or when agreements with companies are stablished to promote the site thought a mobile web platform. A separated mobile website is hosted on a different domain than the main website and works in a completely separately way from the main website.

One of the negatives of creating an independent web sites is that the inability of users to remember two different domains and associate them. This problem is further aggravated when these sites have different content and different browsing experiences.

Another disadvantage is the cost. The cost of maintenance, creation and updating of a separated mobile website tends to be higher than the other options of domains structures.

From a SEO perspective, the new mobile sites don’t benefit from traffic, links or rankings of traditional web site. The new mobile sites have to be positioned in the mobile search engines and must compete with other traditional mobile sites that are already well positioned in search engines. That is, this solution doesn’t take advantage of traditional website positioning and therefore, it is needed to begin from scratch web positioning mobile rates in search engines.

Create a subdomain or subdirectory for the mobile website within the domain

Subdomains are subsections of a mobile website represented in URL shown in the following way: name-subdominio.dominio.com. Subdirectories are sometimes called folders or subfolders. They operate basically the same way as the subdomains, but are represented differently in the URL.

One of the biggest advantages of this option is the ability to customize the content of our website to the needs and requirements of the mobile web. We can eliminate unnecessary components and controls, delete the multimedia content that slows down the loading time of the website or simplify the design in a single column with different headers correctly labeled.

However it has the disadvantage of having to manage two separated pages. When we update content in our traditional website we will have to spend as much time to update the mobile website.

From the SEO point of view, the mobile search engines locate subdomains better than subdirectories because they have a more intuitive and differentiated url which allows a better interpretation. However, opting for the subdomains we lose the benefits of the primary domain (transfer of Page Rank, seniority, popularity from the domain) that subdirectories inherit. Therefore, depending on the optimization SEO of our primary domain we should to evaluate the advisability s to use subdomains or subdirectories for mobile web sites.

We can not forget at this point one of the most important SEO drawbacks when creating subdomains or subdirectories and is the ability to be creating duplicate content. We will have to take special care in this regard.

Hybrid sites traditional-mobile for the main domain

This option is based on the use of multiple CSS to adapt the presentation and th contents of the traditional Web to mobile devices. The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) allow you to determine how it will be shown the contents of a web page, creating a new style sheet called “handheld” will determine how the website content is displayed on a mobile phone. Then we have to insert a link to the mobile stylesheet for each page after the link to the traditional style sheet in order to browsers automatically detect if there is a style sheet adapted for mobile devices.

Now most of the devices support WAP2 technogy that allows viewing of images, XHTML and CSS, besides some offer monochrome display or high resolution displays supporting CSS and Java, so this option is widely accepted technologically.

The use of this technique is very simple, especially if we host the code that controls the styles in a separated file server. Thus, when we update the text document we will update the look of the site automatically quickly. These updates will be taken by the mobile browser to display the page in an optimal way for the device though we acces. This minimizes the load time of the mobile website because it is only necessary to load the style when you access the site but is not required for subsequent accesses to other pages.

From the SEO point of view is the best choice as well as save time and money in the development of mobile web and allows you to keep all links and the positioning of the traditional web on mobile search, eliminating the need to do double updates and duplicate content. With the attribute “display = none” we allow the display of certain elements on a website or another. It is a very useful option for hybrid pages with images or Flash elements that are likely to be deleted on the mobile version of the site.

So the biggest drawback of this technique is that although we can remove certain conflicting elements in the mobile version, they must be loaded by the browser and this can increase the load time of web considerably. Also, some browsers, take time in finding style sheets for mobile, adding extra time in the charging time of the website.

It is not possible to determine which solution is best of the three presented in the article because it depends on the traditional website and the SEO applied on it. Furthermore, as we have seen all three options have their advantages and disadvantages that the webmaster must evaluate for his project.

However, in general terms we might say that the best option from the SEO point of view is to use hybrid pages by incorporating CSS to get the display of our traditional web on mobile devices to make better use of the positioning of the traditional web and avoiding the duplicated content.