Would this fix misleading content?

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by samie, Jan 17, 2014.

  1. #1
    Hey Guys,

    I've been working on a new site and using a plugin called MobilePress, and lately I have been getting worried that I may get in trouble with Google because of "misleading" content.

    I'm not saying this is the case... The website isn't even live yet, nor indexed on Google. But just people on the forums mentioning "misleading" content emails from Google Webmaster Tools because URLs are showing different content(or HTML--not too sure), depending on how they are accessed. I can see this as being an issue.. like say if you wrote some PHP with an if statement to say if Googlebots are crawling then to show a totally different website than if a user shows up.

    But anyways, MobilePress turns my website into a mobile site automatically. So if I go to domain.com on my phone, it will show a different site than if I went to it on my computer. The difference between this mobile site and others though... is the URL stays the same. Users aren't redirected to m.domain.com or anything like that.

    My inquiry here is... is that something I should really be worried about? Some people are reporting this issue and they have no idea why, but it is being suspected that it may have something to do with mobile plugins.

    My second inquiry is... mobilepress actually has a method for forcing which version of the site you use. Incase I wouldn't to put a link on there to give people the option. It's domain.com/?mobile and domain.com/?nomobile . I'm wondering if this would fix any potential issues. If I were to setup a redirect so that if people access my site through their mobile device, it will redirect them to domain.com/?mobile , even though it's the same site, just to make sure that it's a different URL showing different content. Does anyone know if that will be considered to google as a different URL and avoid any "misleading" content? I suppose too I could throw in a canonical and/or noindex/nofollow.

    Any help with this is appreciated. Thanks in advance! ... and sorry for the long post :(
     
    samie, Jan 17, 2014 IP
  2. Nigel Lew

    Nigel Lew Notable Member

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    #2
    Nigel Lew, Jan 17, 2014 IP
  3. ryan_uk

    ryan_uk Illustrious Member

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    #3
    You must show Googlebot the same content as you would a visitor, otherwise it can be viewed as cloaking.

    I don't understand why you want to use something such as Mobilepress. Why not make your site responsive instead? Then it should (if you do it right) display fine regardless of device/screen size/user agent and always show the same content.
     
    ryan_uk, Jan 18, 2014 IP
  4. samie

    samie Member

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    #4
    Do you know if that is just the content though? Or is that the HTML and content (the entire file)? Also, do you think the /?mobile redirect I mentioned would work?
     
    samie, Jan 18, 2014 IP
  5. ryan_uk

    ryan_uk Illustrious Member

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    #5
    Content. You can redirect to another site, but you are making more work for yourself than you need (two themes instead of one).
     
    ryan_uk, Jan 18, 2014 IP