In many cases, you will see that a website will redirect users on mobile phone back to mobile websites home page after they click on the non-mobile version of the site in Google search results. Developers and marketers often do this because (1) they feel the home page is better, (2) they do not have a corresponding page, (3) they are lazy or (4) they having not had time to correctly complete the mobile project.
As of June 6, 2014, Google is now dealing with this issue in a slightly different way. While before, the only thing you had to worry about was the user, who often would feel lost and deceived and then bounce. Now, you need to worry about a new warning that is delivered by Google. Here we see an example of the warning.
As you can see, the warning says, “May open websites home page.” It then asks if you want to try anyway or learn more.
This extra step will lower the amount of visitors to the mobile site. There is no question about it. The user will see this and think. Even if I do click on this, I am going to have to find my way to the content I was just looking for through the actual website myself. Who wants to take the time! This will then of course result in the user bouncing and finding another search result. This pogo stick effect of course can lower organic search rankings.
This is a good technical piece of information for all Internet marketers and web developers to know. Make sure to pass it on.
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