Subdomains vs Subdirectory for platform specific versions of your website
When rolling out a mobile version of your site you have at least 1 question in mind... Do I put it on it's own subdomain (mobile.abc.com) or in a subdirectory (www.abc.com/mobile)?
In years gone by subdomains held special SEO appeal as it was a way to see more results on given SERPs, however this is no longer the case.
Webmasters frequently abused this by creating a number of subdomains for the same types of content aimed solely at generating more links to their sites and therefore dominating SERPs.
In more recent times Google has moade adjustments which essentially reclassify these cross links as internal links. Treating subdomains and subdirectories similarly for the sake of SERP diversity is designed to encourage developers to choose the format and structure that is most convenient for them.
Search engines also have different bots and algorithms than those used for websites targeted to desktops. Amongst other things, they evaluate a website as though it were being rendered and viewed on a mobile device and rank results partially based on how well the page will render on the type of device that submitted the query. The 2 best things you can do for your mobile SEO:
- Ensure that the webcrawler or user agents receive the correct content. If a mobile device user agent requests a page, then redirect it to the relevant subdomain or subdirectory of your site.
- Ensure that webcrawlers and user agents will determine that your content will render well and load quickly on mobile devices.
Other than the 2 points above, all the other common SEO techniques are just as relevant as for you desktop site and as such should be given the same kind of priority.
Easy...
