Does Google penalize if you Re-Direct your mobile traffic?

[donnie]

We have been redirecting our mobile traffic to an alternative mobile optimized site and I am pretty sure we have been penalized for this. Problem, as I see it, is that we have been redirecting to an offsite location meaning traffic from domain1.com was redirecting to a domain2.com (domain2.com being a mobile optimized site).
What we are doing now is redirecting mobile traffic to an onsite location. Mobile traffic coming to domain1.com is redirected to m.domain1.com. Will google penalize us for this as well? We are using a script from detectmobilebrowsers.mobi for detection and redirecting.
Anyone experienced with this script that can offer some insight into this issue?

[andymoore]

No seo problems with that script.

I'm sure one of the 30,000 or so users would have kicked my **** if there were!

That's all I'm saying unless you're a paying upgraded customer!

LOL

:)

[andymoore]

Oh, and welcome along to Mobility!

When you say you think you're being penalised, are you sure you're not just seeing a difference in your analytics which could be well explained by the fact you're redirecting to another site?

That's the only logical thing that springs to mind......

[gogo]

Hi are you saying your place in google results is less good since you started redirecting?

If you are suffering for having duplicate content, or what Google thinks is duplicate content, it makes no difference what domain it is on. If someone copied your site you could even end up getting screwed for it, not the copier. A browser detection script won't hurt you, duplicate content probably will. Try testing your pages with copyscape.

If you want to play it safe, imo you use the browser detection to decide what content appears on a page - the url is the same, the text content is the same, but the formatting or layout on the page is different for mobile and pc users.

as far as page rank, a subdomain like m. is no different from a completely differnent domain - it has independent pagerank.

[newdomainer]

We have been redirecting our mobile traffic to an alternative mobile optimized site and I am pretty sure we have been penalized for this. Problem, as I see it, is that we have been redirecting to an offsite location meaning traffic from domain1.com was redirecting to a domain2.com (domain2.com being a mobile optimized site).
What we are doing now is redirecting mobile traffic to an onsite location. Mobile traffic coming to domain1.com is redirected to m.domain1.com. Will google penalize us for this as well? We are using a script from detectmobilebrowsers.mobi for detection and redirecting.
Anyone experienced with this script that can offer some insight into this issue?


Do you have domain1.mobi / domain2.mobi ?
If you have made a decision not to use dotmobi (even just as the destination for your redirects) would you care to tell us how you made your decision (please note that I ask out of genuine interest as this is the $64,000 question that is asked time & time again)

[donnie]

Oh, and welcome along to Mobility!

When you say you think you're being penalised, are you sure you're not just seeing a difference in your analytics which could be well explained by the fact you're redirecting to another site?

That's the only logical thing that springs to mind......

Thank you very much for your reply! I was hoping you would see this thread :) No I am not 100% sure we are being penalized. But that was before we used your script anyway. I just wanted to know if anyone had any experience with your script and if there is anything we should know.
We are using a free version right now but will definitely buy it! It looks like a great script.

[donnie]

Hi are you saying your place in google results is less good since you started redirecting?

If you are suffering for having duplicate content, or what Google thinks is duplicate content, it makes no difference what domain it is on. If someone copied your site you could even end up getting screwed for it, not the copier. A browser detection script won't hurt you, duplicate content probably will. Try testing your pages with copyscape.

If you want to play it safe, imo you use the browser detection to decide what content appears on a page - the url is the same, the text content is the same, but the formatting or layout on the page is different for mobile and pc users.

as far as page rank, a subdomain like m. is no different from a completely differnent domain - it has independent pagerank.

We have lost some places in SERP's and all I could think of is because we were redirecting traffic. I know google doesn't like any kind of redirection but I have no idea how they look at redirecting mobile traffic.
Problem is not with the duplicate content as it is entirely different content we have on a mobile optimized site.
I see your point with the m.domain.com being an independent domain just like domain2.com but I believe google sees it as on-site redirection if you use m.domain.com.
But I have no idea :) I just wanted to know if anyone have any input on this matter…

[donnie]

Do you have domain1.mobi / domain2.mobi ?
If you have made a decision not to use dotmobi (even just as the destination for your redirects) would you care to tell us how you made your decision (please note that I ask out of genuine interest as this is the $64,000 question that is asked time & time again)

domain1.com is a .com domain and domain we were redirecting to was a .mobi. I guess it shouldn’t make any difference to google. If they don’t like your redirect they would penalize you no matter of TLD you are using. But again I have no idea… I am just guessing.