Author: Simon

In a very short time Google will start to emphasize sites that are specifically designed to be viewed on mobile. In many cases that will be by the inclusion of a mobile style sheet, so that the user will see the same content, but in a design that fits with their user experience.

But what do you do if you have a mobile specific site?

Google does have some directs on https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/configurations/separate-urls?hl=en, but if you have a read through these, they seem to be more based around static sites, or sites with only a very few pages. So what happens if you have several hundred pages that need to be redirected to the same page but on a different url, eg https://www.example.com needs to be redirected to http://example.mobi AND https://www.example.com/page1.htm needs to redirect to http://example.mobi/page1.htm.

It’s actually easier than it looks, but weirdly there doesn’t seem to be any published code for it, so here goes!

First I should add that in my particular case the mobile site (http://example.mobi) was a static site, and already had the canonical tags added. Each page referred to it’s parent page as follows: –

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/page1.htm" >

So on that side of things I didn’t need to do anything. Also the page url (by which I mean page1.htm, page2.htm etc), were also exact equivalents. If one site had something like page1/ or page1.html though, you could apply the same technique.

If you mobile site is also wordpress based, again the same code can be used as long as page names are the same.

Adding the link rel=”alternative”

Google recommends that: –

On the desktop page (http://www.example.com/page-1), add:

<link rel="alternate" media="only screen and (max-width: 640px)"
      href="http://m.example.com/page-1" >

One a larger site, or in wordpress that mean that you need either something to manually add in the mobile url, or you need to generate it automatically. I chose to do the latter as the site has over 250 pages! To do this you will need to edit your header.php file.

1. Before you start, whatever you are doing take a backup of your header.php.
2. I would recommend editing this file using an external editor like Dreamweaver or Coda and uploading it. That way if anything does go wrong, you can just upload the previous version. However, this is amazingly simple, so I didn’t follow my own advise and I actually edited it in Appearance >> Editor, then chose my theme and header.php
3. Scroll down in the code to a place where you want to add your line in, add a few spaces so you have room and paste the following: –

<?php
$urlDesktop = array(“https://www.”, “com”);
$urlMobile = array(“http://”, “mobi”);
?>
<link rel=”alternate” media=”only screen and (max-width: 640px)” href=”<?php echo str_replace($urlDesktop, $urlMobile, get_site_url() . $_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’]); ?>” >

In this case what we are doing is: –

1. Creating 2 arrays. These are basically 2 places to store the elements in the url you want to swap out. So in my case urlDesktop contains the sections of the desktop url I wanted to swap, and urlMobile contains the sections I want to swap in. NOTE that the positions must be exactly the same ie the first item in one array swaps with the first in the other etc. You can make as may changes as you want in here as long as each array has the same number of elements. Also note that the Desktop array includes the “.” after “www”. If you leave that off, you will get “http://.example” in your final result. Not what you want.
2. Add in the code as per Googles advise, but the link includes some php. This
   1. Requests the URL of the page that the code is on
   2. Then swaps out sections you built in your arrays, swapping the urlDesktop sections with the urlMobile sections.

That’s it! Just save your header.php file and you will now get the required Google code on each of your pages, pointing to the mobile site.

What to do if your urls don’t match

So if you have a site as large as the one I’m working on, there are a few pages where the urls don’t exactly align. Typically that might be when you get something like: –

• Desktop site – http://www.example.com/page-1.htm
• Mobile site – http://www.example.com/page1.htm

The easy way to handle this, if there are only a few of them is to rename the pages! However, for whatever reason you may decide not to do this. You could use your same arrays and just add the pages in there. eg

$urlDesktop = array(“https://www.”, “com”, “page-1”);
$urlMobile = array(“http://”, “mobi”, “page1”);

If you do this, make sure there are no page-10’s though as these would then be swapped to page10’s.

I have been searching for a way to add a default category into a WordPress Custom Post and finally got to a method that seemed to work for me. The explanation I came across was a bit vague so I thought I would try and clear it up here: –

The Code

// Adds the category to the jobs post automatically

function add_jobs_category_automatically($post_ID) {
global $wpdb;
if(!has_term(”,’category’,$post_ID)){
$cat = array(139);
wp_set_object_terms($post_ID, $cat, ‘category’);
}
}
add_action(‘publish_job’, ‘add_jobs_category_automatically’);

Explanation

line 1: function add_jobs_category_automatically($post_ID) {

This just sets the name of the function, in this case “add_jobs_category_automatically” declares it as a function and says what it applies to.

CHANGE ‘add_jobs_category_automatically’ to anything that will make sense to you.

line 2: global $wpdb;

Ok, I’m guessing at some of these, but I would say that this means that the function applies globally to the wordpress database

CHANGE: Nothing

line 3: if(!has_term(”,’category’,$post_ID)){

Some WordPress gubbins!

CHANGE: Nothing

line 4: $cat = array(139);

This is the category number you want to apply to the custom post. In my case it was 139, but yours could be anything.

To find the category number in your WordPress admin interface, go to Posts, Categories and mouse over the category you want to add automatically. You should see a number under category&tag_ID=139, the number is what you need (if you can’t see it by mousing over copy the link and paste it somewhere, it should look something like http://www.mysite.com/wp-admin/edit-tags.php?action=edit&taxonomy=category&tag_ID=139&post_type=post. Just copy the number and paste it into this line.

CHANGE: The number to your category

line 5: wp_set_object_terms($post_ID, $cat, ‘category’);

Some WordPress gubbins

CHANGE: Nothing

line 6, 7 just closing brackets
CHANGE: Nothing

line 8: add_action(‘publish_job’, ‘add_jobs_category_automatically’);

This is the tricks one, so I will break it into 3 parts

add_action – Some WordPress Gubbins – CHANGE: Nothing

publish_job – This says what your custom post type is called that this should apply to. In my case it is the job in publish_job. You will need to change the job to your custom post type.

To find this go to your custom posts, to the page where they are listed. The URL of the page is key. In my site it is http://www.mysite.com/wp-admin/edit.php?post_type=job. You need what comes after the post_type= in this url. As you can see mine is job.
CHANGE: publish_job, the job to your custom post type.

add_jobs_category_automatically – This is the function you created in line 1, so you should change this to the function name you made there. In my case line 1 was “function add_jobs_category_automatically($post_ID) {“, so you can see that the bit you need is between “function” and “($post_ID)”
CHANGE: All of it to your function name in line 1

You need to add your final code into the functions.php file, somewhere before the closing ?> tag. In mine I added it just after the function to create the custom post. So that whole section looks as follows: –

// Add Careers Custom Post Type

add_action( ‘init’, ‘register_cpt_job’ );
function register_cpt_job() {
$labels = array(
‘name’ => _x( ‘Careers’, ‘job’ ),
‘singular_name’ => _x( ‘Job’, ‘job’ ),
‘add_new’ => _x( ‘Add New’, ‘job’ ),
‘add_new_item’ => _x( ‘Add New Job’, ‘job’ ),
‘edit_item’ => _x( ‘Edit Job’, ‘job’ ),
‘new_item’ => _x( ‘New Job’, ‘job’ ),
‘view_item’ => _x( ‘View Job’, ‘job’ ),
‘search_items’ => _x( ‘Search Careers’, ‘job’ ),
‘not_found’ => _x( ‘No careers found’, ‘job’ ),
‘not_found_in_trash’ => _x( ‘No careers found in Trash’, ‘job’ ),
‘parent_item_colon’ => _x( ‘Parent Job:’, ‘job’ ),
‘menu_name’ => _x( ‘Careers’, ‘job’ ),
);
$args = array(
‘labels’ => $labels,
‘hierarchical’ => false,
‘description’ => ‘Careers section for displaying jobs on the site.’,
‘supports’ => array( ‘title’, ‘editor’, ‘excerpt’, ‘author’, ‘thumbnail’, ‘custom-fields’, ‘revisions’, ‘page-attributes’ ),
‘taxonomies’ => array( ‘category’, ‘post_tag’ ),
‘public’ => true,
‘show_ui’ => true,
‘show_in_menu’ => true,
‘show_in_nav_menus’ => true,
‘publicly_queryable’ => true,
‘exclude_from_search’ => false,
‘has_archive’ => true,
‘query_var’ => true,
‘can_export’ => true,
‘rewrite’ => true,
‘capability_type’ => ‘post’
);
register_post_type( ‘job’, $args );
}

// Adds the category to the jobs post automatically

function add_jobs_category_automatically($post_ID) {
global $wpdb;
if(!has_term(”,’category’,$post_ID)){
$cat = array(139);
wp_set_object_terms($post_ID, $cat, ‘category’);
}
}
add_action(‘publish_job’, ‘add_jobs_category_automatically’);

The green text at the top is my custom post type and the blue test at the bottom is the code to set my default category in the custom post.