.m subdomain -vs- .mobi domain DEBATE OVER SEO EFFECTS - Which is better?

by MissTR
17 replies
I am looking for a true SEO EXPERT who can tell me (from their own experience) whether or not one or the other truly ranks higher in google, all other variables being equal- a .m subdomain, or a .mobi domain

This is a hotly debated subject and I am sick of trying to figure it out. I realize I am not the seo expert and I don't want to lead my new clients down the wrong path...

When I am building mobile websites for them.
Everyone talks about best practices of mobile websites.

1- Many say .m url structure is the best way (or a company can lose hard earned search rankings).

2- Others say a .mobi is better and will actually rank higher than a .m subdomain!


I'm confused, and I want to get to the bottom of this before I end up making a mistake that could hurt my clients (although probably fixable later). Whhy start out on the wrong foot if I don't have to?

Anyway, I would be interested in some INTELLIGENT, fact-supported feedback (from personal experience) from anyone who has been doing this for a while--building mobile websites and setting up either .m or .mobi primarily for SEO reasons.

Thanks in Advance!!

Sincerely,
-MissTR
#mobi #mobile seo #mobile website .m domain #mobile website subdomain
  • Profile picture of the author Nail Yener
    Hi MissTR,

    I am not sure if anyone can come up with a solid strategy for mobile SEO because, the way mobile websites are being built and the way search engines are indexing mobile sites change rapidly. Add to that, a great number of different types of mobile devices, tablets, TVs, etc. are introduced to the market every year.

    I have been following my own way of justification for building mobile sites and I was using either a subdomain (m., mobile.) or a subdirectory (/mobile/) when I create mobile sites. I use .mobi for only stand-alone mobile sites.

    In the last couple of months, Google and Bing published their recommendations about how to develop websites for various platforms (desktop, mobile, etc.). From what I understand and from what I've read on the internet, I think the recommended way is to have one URL and serve different styles for different platforms/devices.

    Here are the links to Bing's and Google's articles on the subject:

    Bing Building Websites Optimized for All Platforms (desktop, mobile, etc.) - Webmaster Center blog - Site Blogs - Bing Community
    https://developers.google.com/webmas...-sites/details

    They are not ignoring different URLs for mobile sites, but as a web designer, I can sense that the industry will be going towards "one URL for all" type of websites.

    I didn't want to confuse your mind more but I guess it is better to know all the options and be aware of the recommended practices.
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    • Profile picture of the author MissTR
      Nail,

      Thanks for the reply.

      -MissTR
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  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    Seriously, that has absolutely nothing to do with mobile SEO. In fact, most of mobile SEO is not real. It's more important to have responsive design than it is worrying about the structure. In theory of regular SEO, the subdomain would be stronger, but it really makes no difference based on what Google has said, and my own experience.
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    • Profile picture of the author Gaz Christian
      It is my opinion that the "favored" one url structure will fail ultimately when a greater understanding of the mobile internet user is more widespread. I generally tend to build my clients mobile websites as "standalone" alternatives to the main website, essentially because mobile users are typically not wanting all of the fluff and extra content.
      However I can discern no difference between m. \ .mobi or even m.domain.mobi!

      bob..
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      Instant Authority Marketing Websites


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      • Profile picture of the author MissTR
        Originally Posted by Bob Lee View Post

        It is my opinion that the "favored" one url structure will fail ultimately when a greater understanding of the mobile internet user is more widespread. I generally tend to build my clients mobile websites as "standalone" alternatives to the main website, essentially because mobile users are typically not wanting all of the fluff and extra content.
        However I can discern no difference between m. .mobi or even m.domain.mobi!

        bob..
        Bob,

        If this thread wasn't about SEO, your comment would be fine-although ANY mobile site you build right now is totally up to You and Your Client as to what the content is.

        The structure has nothing to do with what content you put on the mobile site. Making a "fluff-less" site is the easy part.

        But I wasn't actually looking for this as part of the discussion.

        That said, I prefer standalone domains for the mobile site too just because if their full site goes down, their mobile site will still be up and serving the majority of their customers (since they will probably be more on mobile than anything else)... Among other things.

        Thanks for the reply,
        -MissTR
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        • Profile picture of the author fsnsh6
          if mobile site build
          a-m.domain.com (subdomain)
          or
          b-domain.com/m better ?(folder will do)faster load speed
          anyone opinion?
          in the future which will apply a or b?
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    • Profile picture of the author sodomojo
      Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

      Seriously, that has absolutely nothing to do with mobile SEO. In fact, most of mobile SEO is not real. It's more important to have responsive design than it is worrying about the structure. In theory of regular SEO, the subdomain would be stronger, but it really makes no difference based on what Google has said, and my own experience.
      You mean to tell me the WSO I recieved and email about yesterday concerning ranking my be mobile site within 20 minutes is bunk? No way man I believed it. I thought it would solve all my mobile SEO problems I've been having lol.
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      • Profile picture of the author MissTR
        Originally Posted by Tydowns View Post

        You mean to tell me the WSO I recieved and email about yesterday concerning ranking my be mobile site within 20 minutes is bunk? No way man I believed it. I thought it would solve all my mobile SEO problems I've been having lol.
        Yep, probably bunk, but may be worth trying anyway... who knows, it might just work.


        -MissTR
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  • Profile picture of the author Kung Fu Backlinks
    A while back I purchased this Mobile Challenge thing from Maria G. I remember her having a mobile guy on a webinar and they made it pretty clear that a subdomain, "m.yourwebsite.com" was the way to go. The guy made comment that the .mobi's were just a marketing ploy to make more money. I'm sure it worked.

    I wish I could be more detailed, but that's all I remember from the course. I believe they got into a lot of depth regarding mobile SEO, though... it included the proper way to submit to Google Webmaster Tools, etc. too. Sounds like a good course if you're into mobile.
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    SCHEMA.ORG + GEOTAGGING + KML + PUBLISHERSHIP + so much more...
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    • Profile picture of the author MissTR
      Originally Posted by Kung Fu Backlinks View Post

      A while back I purchased this Mobile Challenge thing from Maria G. I remember her having a mobile guy on a webinar and they made it pretty clear that a subdomain, "m.yourwebsite.com" was the way to go. The guy made comment that the .mobi's were just a marketing ploy to make more money. I'm sure it worked.

      I wish I could be more detailed, but that's all I remember from the course. I believe they got into a lot of depth regarding mobile SEO, though... it included the proper way to submit to Google Webmaster Tools, etc. too. Sounds like a good course if you're into mobile.
      Kung Fu,

      Thanks for the reply although this wasn't what I was asking. I am very familiar with the program that you speak of and I can say that I do not agree that .mobi was to make more money. Yes, they registrars made more money but if google likes .mobi domains then google likes .mobi domains (I guess they have their place).

      I was simply trying to validate -from experience- whether or not ".m domain is the way to go" over other url structures as far as SEO is concerned, not in general.

      -MissTR
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  • Profile picture of the author Jay Moreno
    If you look at what Google suggests it really makes no difference where the mobile site is placed.

    However speed is one major factor not just for Google but also for the end user experience, if your visitor has to wait a long time to access your mobile content you increase the chances of loosing them and never returning. Having a mobile site on a different server or domain may cause latency issues and take a longer time to redirect.

    What you need to do is properly tell mobile visitors including Googles mobile bot where the mobile optimized content is located, in doing so you need to make sure your headers are correctly formatted, double check to see whether or not you need canonical rel tags in place. Identifying your mobile site can also be done by creating a properly formatted mobile site map and submitting it to your Google Webmaster Tools.

    Also the way your detect a mobile visitor and redirect them also plays a key role too - not all redirection scripts are the same, checking against screen size alone is not accurate, user agent detection is a good way to go but you can go overboard with it - checking individual device models against 1000's of different devices is not efficient. For me Javascript is the least reliable option with PHP based user agent scripts being the most robust. There are several ways to detect and redirect your mobile visitors and all have pros and cons be sure you understand them before implementing them.

    In addition to this you also need to make sure your site loads fast and i would highly recommend you make sure your content also validates correctly.

    Personally instead of a responsive design i would alaways opt for a specific mobile optimized website or a site that has an adaptive design - ie uses the same url but renders a completely different HTML layout based on the user agent and different content (Needs the Vary Header set). Whilst responsive designs can be considered mobile ready they are typically far from being mobile optimized the page sizes will also be big and load slower than a mobile optimized site.

    A responsive design is good for desktop users and tablet users and for when a mobile visitor wants to access the full site from a small factor mobile device. A mobile site should contain optimized content thats formatted for users on the go thats easy to access and read.

    You should also provide some method for the mobile user to visit the main site from the mobile site without them automatically getting redirected again back to the mobile site and basically getting stuck in a loop.

    The importance of mobile is increasing ten fold and really shouldn't be left as an after thought - careful consideration on how you implement a mobile website should be undertaken for each and every new project the more experienced you get you will soon realize there is no silver bullet.

    For SEO purposes you also need to understand the difference between Google.com/m and the Google search portal for smartphones - the results are very different.

    PS Always try and test on real devices - at the very minimum on an iphone or itouch/android/blackberry

    Hope That Helps

    Jay
    Signature
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    • Profile picture of the author MissTR
      Originally Posted by Jay Moreno View Post

      If you look at what Google suggests it really makes no difference where the mobile site is placed.

      However speed is one major factor not just for Google but also for the end user experience, if your visitor has to wait a long time to access your mobile content you increase the chances of loosing them and never returning. Having a mobile site on a different server or domain may cause latency issues and take a longer time to redirect.

      What you need to do is properly tell mobile visitors including Googles mobile bot where the mobile optimized content is located, in doing so you need to make sure your headers are correctly formatted, double check to see whether or not you need canonical rel tags in place. Identifying your mobile site can also be done by creating a properly formatted mobile site map and submitting it to your Google Webmaster Tools.

      Also the way your detect a mobile visitor and redirect them also plays a key role too - not all redirection scripts are the same, checking against screen size alone is not accurate, user agent detection is a good way to go but you can go overboard with it - checking individual device models against 1000's of different devices is not efficient. For me Javascript is the least reliable option with PHP based user agent scripts being the most robust. There are several ways to detect and redirect your mobile visitors and all have pros and cons be sure you understand them before implementing them.

      In addition to this you also need to make sure your site loads fast and i would highly recommend you make sure your content also validates correctly.

      Personally instead of a responsive design i would alaways opt for a specific mobile optimized website or a site that has an adaptive design - ie uses the same url but renders a completely different HTML layout based on the user agent and different content (Needs the Vary Header set). Whilst responsive designs can be considered mobile ready they are typically far from being mobile optimized the page sizes will also be big and load slower than a mobile optimized site.

      A responsive design is good for desktop users and tablet users and for when a mobile visitor wants to access the full site from a small factor mobile device. A mobile site should contain optimized content thats formatted for users on the go thats easy to access and read.

      You should also provide some method for the mobile user to visit the main site from the mobile site without them automatically getting redirected again back to the mobile site and basically getting stuck in a loop.

      The importance of mobile is increasing ten fold and really shouldn't be left as an after thought - careful consideration on how you implement a mobile website should be undertaken for each and every new project the more experienced you get you will soon realize there is no silver bullet.

      For SEO purposes you also need to understand the difference between Google.com/m and the Google search portal for smartphones - the results are very different.

      PS Always try and test on real devices - at the very minimum on an iphone or itouch/android/blackberry

      Hope That Helps

      Jay
      Jay,
      This does help...as always.


      Thanks,
      -MissTR
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    • Profile picture of the author techsavvy
      Originally Posted by Jay Moreno View Post

      If you look at what Google suggests it really makes no difference where the mobile site is placed.

      However speed is one major factor not just for Google but also for the end user experience, if your visitor has to wait a long time to access your mobile content you increase the chances of loosing them and never returning. Having a mobile site on a different server or domain may cause latency issues and take a longer time to redirect.

      What you need to do is properly tell mobile visitors including Googles mobile bot where the mobile optimized content is located, in doing so you need to make sure your headers are correctly formatted, double check to see whether or not you need canonical rel tags in place. Identifying your mobile site can also be done by creating a properly formatted mobile site map and submitting it to your Google Webmaster Tools.

      Also the way your detect a mobile visitor and redirect them also plays a key role too - not all redirection scripts are the same, checking against screen size alone is not accurate, user agent detection is a good way to go but you can go overboard with it - checking individual device models against 1000's of different devices is not efficient. For me Javascript is the least reliable option with PHP based user agent scripts being the most robust. There are several ways to detect and redirect your mobile visitors and all have pros and cons be sure you understand them before implementing them.

      In addition to this you also need to make sure your site loads fast and i would highly recommend you make sure your content also validates correctly.

      Personally instead of a responsive design i would alaways opt for a specific mobile optimized website or a site that has an adaptive design - ie uses the same url but renders a completely different HTML layout based on the user agent and different content (Needs the Vary Header set). Whilst responsive designs can be considered mobile ready they are typically far from being mobile optimized the page sizes will also be big and load slower than a mobile optimized site.

      A responsive design is good for desktop users and tablet users and for when a mobile visitor wants to access the full site from a small factor mobile device. A mobile site should contain optimized content thats formatted for users on the go thats easy to access and read.

      You should also provide some method for the mobile user to visit the main site from the mobile site without them automatically getting redirected again back to the mobile site and basically getting stuck in a loop.

      The importance of mobile is increasing ten fold and really shouldn't be left as an after thought - careful consideration on how you implement a mobile website should be undertaken for each and every new project the more experienced you get you will soon realize there is no silver bullet.

      For SEO purposes you also need to understand the difference between Google.com/m and the Google search portal for smartphones - the results are very different.

      PS Always try and test on real devices - at the very minimum on an iphone or itouch/android/blackberry

      Hope That Helps

      Jay
      Hi Jay.

      I read your thread refering" In addition to this you also need to make sure your site loads fast and i would highly recommend you make sure your content also validates correctly."

      How will I make sure to validate correctly for mobile optimised themes?

      Do I need tool to use it?

      I purchased your inspire products lately.

      and curiously, for validate correctly on other repsonsive mobile them or adaptive theme?? If you like to pm me or reply via this thread.

      Mrs. T raised good questions on M.domain v Mobi.domain.

      My prioporties to ensure mobile optimised to load faster by searching via mobile browsing(3G,4G or wifi) or loading fast via QR code...

      Happy New year in advance

      Tech savvy
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      • Profile picture of the author Jay Moreno
        Originally Posted by techsavvy View Post

        Hi Jay.

        I read your thread refering" In addition to this you also need to make sure your site loads fast and i would highly recommend you make sure your content also validates correctly."

        How will I make sure to validate correctly for mobile optimised themes?

        Do I need tool to use it?

        I purchased your inspire products lately.

        Tech savvy
        Hi TechSavvy

        Check our the W3C mobile checker - while it is getting outdated its still not a bad rule of thumb guide, the higher the validation score the better your site will work across ALL phones not just smartphones.

        Remember there is a large number of feature phones that are powered by Android

        Another thing to check is your actual page load speed - remember though there is a difference between using googles checker and say Akamai mobile checker - Googles checks for technology being used where as Akamai checks actual load times.

        If you need assistance with anything at all with your Inspire theme dont hesitate to open a support ticket!

        Cheers,

        Jay
        Signature
        Sorry, I am too busy helping people to think of a cool signature!
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        • Profile picture of the author techsavvy
          Originally Posted by Jay Moreno View Post

          Hi TechSavvy

          Check our the W3C mobile checker - while it is getting outdated its still not a bad rule of thumb guide, the higher the validation score the better your site will work across ALL phones not just smartphones.

          Remember there is a large number of feature phones that are powered by Android

          Another thing to check is your actual page load speed - remember though there is a difference between using googles checker and say Akamai mobile checker - Googles checks for technology being used where as Akamai checks actual load times.

          If you need assistance with anything at all with your Inspire theme dont hesitate to open a support ticket!

          Cheers,

          Jay
          Hi Jay.

          Many thanks for answering my questions and you are very helpful.

          absolutely ,will determine to work on your Inspire theme for my mobile consultation business then contact your support desk and loves your customer's animated mobile landing pages.
          It's awesome and very cool.

          Tech savvy
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  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    Hey guys, since this was brought back from the dead, The Big G has indeed said that Responsive is the way to go... not even m. or .mobi.

    Google states that responsive web design is its recommended mobile configuration, and even goes so far as to refer to responsive web design as the industry best practice. - https://developers.google.com/webmas...rtphone-sites/
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    • Profile picture of the author Jay Moreno
      Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

      Hey guys, since this was brought back from the dead, The Big G has indeed said that Responsive is the way to go... not even m. or .mobi.
      It's not as black and white as that...

      On one hand you have Google search saying they recommend responsive, but exactly what type of responsive approaches are they talking about - i would estimate that 95% of all the responsive themes which power a great number of Wordpress sites fail or score miserably on Google's own Mobile Page Speed Test

      Take a look at Googles mobile initiative GoMo and you will see they are predominantly in favor of true mobile optimized websites and RESS/Adaptive design.

      Consider some of these factors such as end user experience, page load speeds, bloated code, high http requests but to name a few - you will soon realize that the majority of responsive themes are not cut out to give a great mobile experience.

      Take a look at the top 100 corporate and retail sites and i guarantee 95% of them don't use responsive! And there's a reason for that... my guess is end user experience.

      Go with what you think is best, but dont do it without knowing the pros and cons of Responsive, Standalone and RESS...

      For us we believe responsive is the way to go for desktop and tablets with an RESS/Adaptive approach to compliment the desktop site layout and aesthetics - meaning that the HTML rendered for mobile is truly optimized for mobile but just like a responsive site (if you want it to) can be served on the same url as your desktop site.

      Hope that helps
      Signature
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