Letting people revert back to desktop site from mobile site

Question

My website will revert visitors to a seperate mobile site, this seems fairly simple after reading a few guides online.

However, I would like people to be able to click a link on the mobile site which will then take them to the desktop site.

The problem I see is that if I link back to the desktop site it will just redirect them back if they are on mobile?

How can I get around this?

Answer 1

Really you want to be doing this sort of thing server-side, not client-side. The issue is you're forcing a mobile user (on a potentially bad connection) to download your whole desktop site first (which might be over 1MB), just for the javascript redirect to take effect.

By that point, your mobile visitor may have lost patience and left already.

I blogged about the process here: http://www.9xb.com/blog-2012-08-6-common-pitfalls-when-deploying-a-mobile-site-and-how-they-can-be-avoided/ - if you jump to the bottom of the article, you'll see a flow diagram that maps out the whole process. This particular method uses cookies, but it could be adapted. The beauty of this flow diagram is that it is language independent - you can develop it in any server side programming flavour.

For your convenience, I've included the flow diagram below (although I strongly recommend you give the article a read):

http://www.9xb.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/mobile-deployment-small.png

The alternative to all of that work, would be to develop a mobile-first responsive site. Not knowing your circumstances, I'll leave it at that - it's not always appropriate in every single scenario.

Answer 2

Make the redirect-to-mobile optional (i.e. a link at the top of the desktop page), or put the mobile redirect only on the initial entry point, i.e. mydomain.com. If they go to mydomain.com/index.html, then don't redirect. That way your 'back to desktop' link can be simply a normal link to index.html, from index_mobile.html or wherever you send them for their mobile experience.

Personally, I would much rather the layout was fluid enough to fit whichever browser anyway, then there is no problem to begin with. Remember, there are now tablets of various sizes to muddy the mobile browsing waters.