How to tell Google about a mobile version of a page?

This video presents a response on the particular question: “Is there a way to tell Google about a mobile version of a page?” Matt Cutts explained that mobile versions of sites are made for smartphone utilization. He averred that sites intended for mobile use should allow users to correctly land on the mobile version of the page. To avoid mishaps, Matt Cutts enumerated several ways to do it.

Things to know:

rel= “alternate”- This is defined as the destination as one kind of an alternate version of the current page that the user landed on.

rel= “canonical”- This specifies the correct version of the page, thus preventing issues on duplicate content.

This video highlights the following reminder:

• Use a responsive design. For your site, choose a design that works on both mobile and desktop users. To fit the screen resolution on any type of media you are using to view the page, you need to enable JavaScript and CSS scaling so Google can retrieve and interpret the codes used to determine whether the page is responsive or not.
• Create a separate version of the page. With the end goal of catering to both mobile and desktop users, you should make a separate version for each user through creating a separate URL. To do this, you need to put rel= “alternate” on the desktop version of the page that connects to the mobile version of the page so that Google will know that the two versions are connected to each other.
• Have a compatible mobile page. You also need to put rel= “canonical” to the mobile version of the page to point to the desktop version of the page. In this case, Google would know that the mobile version is connected to the desktop version though each has a different URL but contains the same contents.

These bi-directional links will tell Google that the two sites are different and direct the user to the proper version.

• Use redirect properly. Redirect smartphone agents from the desktop version of the page to the mobile version of the page. Google bot will interpret this information to give the right version preferred. So make sure not to block Google bot mobile, JavaScript and CSS to enable Google to determine the mobile and desktop versions of a page.

To get better SEO rankings you should:

• Build a mobile friendly website with responsive design for users who are using their mobile devices such as tablets or smartphones instead of the traditional desktop computers.
• Use correct and proper methods recognised and recommended by Google in order to have a mobile version of your website or page.