'Buy the app' landing page implementations: redirect or javascript popup?
- by benwad
My site (using Django) has an app that I'm trying to push - I currently have a piece of middleware that redirects the user to a page advertising the app if they're accessing the page on the iPhone, then setting a cookie so that the user isn't bugged by the message every time they visit the site. This works fine, however checking the page with the mobile Googlebot checker shows that the Googlebot gets stuck in the redirect (since it doesn't store cookies) and therefore won't index the proper content.
So, I'm trying to think of an alternative implementation that won't hurt the site's Google ranking and won't have any other adverse effects. I've considered a couple of options:
Redirect (the current solution), but don't redirect if the user agent matches the Googlebot's UA string. This would be ideal, however I'm not sure if Google like their bot being treated differently from other users, and I'm afraid the site's ranking may be somehow penalised if I go ahead with this.
Use a Javascript popup instead of a redirect. This would make sure the Googlebot finds the content it needs, however I envision this approach causing compatibility issues with the myriad mobile devices/browsers out there, and may affect the page load time.
How valid are these options? And is there a better option for implementing this feature out there? I've tried researching this topic but surprisingly can't find any reputable-looking blog posts that explore this topic.
