How to find and fix sneaky redirects for mobile devices

To answer this question, you first need to figure out what a redirect is; it an automatic redirecting a visitor to another page or website.

Sneaky redirects mean that the user's mobile device is redirected to content which can't be accessed by a crawler, for example, WAP-click affiliate programs. These redirects violate recommendations from Google. Search engine sanctions can be applied to resources using such redirects by removing pages from the index.

In this case, we are not talking about redirecting users of mobile devices to an adapted lightweight version of the website hosted on a subdomain. Redirecting mobile traffic to other URLs is problematic as it interferes with normal access to the desired resource.

The resource convenience for visitors is a top priority for search engines; therefore unfairly advertised projects are banned for a particular period of time. If the website owner then removes all advertising scripts with redirects, the resource gets back to the search engines index.

This kind of redirect can either occur by the website owners' will or appear without their knowledge for the following reasons:

You can find out if there is a hidden redirect in your project by going to your resource from Google search results on a mobile device or on portable device emulators.

You can run a check in the browser developer tools in Firefox, Safari, or Chrome. If there is no sneaky redirect, you will be redirected to the checked resource will be carried out regardless of the device used.

Here's what the interface of the developer tool console and the place where you choose the device type look like:

Often in the case of sneaky redirects, not only the device used is important, but also the source from which the user came to the resource, that is, a search engine or social media. You are only redirected if several conditions are met. As a result, the resource owner may not be aware of such problems on their website.

In those cases, there may be two information sources:

Such cases do not always indicate that there are sneaky redirects, but they need to be closely monitored.

To be automatically informed about significant declines in mobile traffic, you can set notifications in Google Analytics.

To do that, go to the subsection "Custom alerts" of the "Custom reports" section:

Press "Manage custom alerts":

Then, specify the alert name, select period, and tick the "Send me an email when this alert triggers" box to receive alerts by email.

Now let's specify alert conditions. You will receive an alert if the average session duration of mobile users decreases by more than 50% compared to the same day in the previous week. When you specify all conditions, press "Save Alert":

If your website is hacked, you will see the respective message on it. Follow Google's guidelines to recover your website.

First, you need to backup your project on the hosting. Then, one by one, remove third-party scripts and elements from the pages where the redirect occurs.

After you delete every script, make sure the redirect disappeared. If a script that causes a redirect to a website is still there, you must remove it from the project and contact the advertiser or developer of the widget to find out the next possible actions if necessary.

To avoid such issues, you need to be smart when choosing advertisers. We also suggest you carefully go through the TAG Inventory Quality Guidelines (IQG) by IAB. Google AdSense is a verified option for running affiliate ads.

There are currently many options for monetizing content for mobile devices that are convenient for visitors and do not lead to the removal of a resource from the index of search engines; it is necessary to use them.

It is also important to only install widgets and social media buttons from verified official sources on the website.

Sneaky website redirects entail problems, including the loss of the audience using mobile devices, and being banned by the search engines.

To avoid these difficulties, you need to be smart when choosing advertisers, install widgets and buttons only from official resources, and inspect the project with the antivirus if you suspect that there are any problems.