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Does google crawl the mobile version of a website? I would think not, since the user agent would be that of the google bot.

If it doesn't crawl it, does it mean that having a mobile version of a website has little impact on the page rank?

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Well, the answer to your question is twofold:

  1. A mobile version of your website will not have an impact on your desktop version, since the sites are targeted at different user groups.

  2. Google does have a dedicated mobile bot, the Googlebot-Mobile. So this bot will crawl, index and rank your mobile version. Important fact to know, if you want your mobile website to be ranked within the search results of Google's mobile search on mobile devices. The mobile version of your site will be preferred to the desktop one on mobile devices.

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Valuable info for me. Thanks! – Dexter Morgan Nov 22 '11 at 15:48
Do you have any evidence that your mobile version will be preferred in mobile searches? I haven't seen that myself. – DisgruntledGoat Nov 22 '11 at 20:29
Well, yes and no. I do see many mobile-tailored URLs in my mobile searches with my iPhone and Android, but can't really prove that the mobile page is being preferred, since all my mobile traffic is redirected anyway to the mobile version. It certainly doesn't affect the SEO of the desktop version in a negative way ... – DKOATED Nov 25 '11 at 14:59
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To answer the question about whether it will be preferred - yes, it seems so: googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/12/… – David Freitas Dec 20 '11 at 8:43

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