Google Reporting Faulty Mobile Redirects


Google has been very clear that faulty mobile redirects are something you need to get corrected sooner rather than later. They've talked about it, posted about it, even added alerts directly within their search results for their users and now they've rolled out new reporting within their Webmaster Tools. One of these reports is directly related to a site's failure to take the user to the intended page, and instead redirecting them to the site's homepage. You can find this new report called, faulty redirects within the Smartphone crawl errors section of Webmaster Tools.

faulty-redirect-notice-wmt.png

You can also expect to see an email notice within your Webmaster Tools account that looks something like the following:

faulty-redirect-notice.jpg

If you find yourself with a faulty redirect then here is a quick list of Google recommendations:

  • Use the example URLs we provide in Webmaster Tools as a starting point to debug exactly where the problem is with your server configuration.
  • Set up your server so that it redirects smartphone users to the equivalent URL on your smartphone site.
  • If a page on your site doesn’t have a smartphone equivalent, keep users on the desktop page, rather than redirecting them to the smartphone site’s homepage. Doing nothing is better than doing something wrong in this case.
  • Try using responsive Web design, which serves the same content for desktop and smartphone users.

Be warned, that if you receive the faulty redirect notice and are unable to replicate the issue - Google has

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