How to direct my users to my iPhone enabled site?

Question

I have made an iPhone friendly version of my site, that I want to direct my users to.

The big question now is how to direct my users to this site. There are a few alternatives:

1. Redirect the user based on the user agent, e.g. if the user agent sent by the browser contains "iPhone" or android or whatever.
2. If the user agent matches the above criteria, display a notice on the original site telling the user that an iPhone version is available.

Which one is the most user-friendly? Another dimension to consider is the SEO aspect. How do I show Google that my site is iPhone capable?

Answer 1

This strikes me as more of a user experience question than a programming design decision. I would build either solution depending on what makes sense for your site, and your users. If you do go the redirect route, and the content on both version of the site are the same, I wouldn't worry to much about google. If the content is different, I would make sure both sites are visible to googlebot.

Answer 2

Nearly every site that I visit that has a mobile/iPhone version that just redirects me automatically, and then at the bottom there is a link to go to the full version if I want.

For SEO I don't think this would hurt anything, since web crawlers aren't run on mobile devices.

Answer 3

I recently found some relevant posts on the Google Webmaster Tools homepage:

• Help Google index your mobile site
• Running Desktop and mobile versions of your site

Answer 4

Hi,

Check out the links below.

web dev kit

and for css info on detection

css Info

it is some of the better info I have found, hope it helps.

Kirk

Answer 5

phidah above has some good links, but remember: always include a link to view the desktop version. nothing is more frustrating than a limited mobile version when the desktop works just fine on the iPhone. there are exceptions, of course - for example if your desktop is mostly flash :p