What Is Mobile-First Indexing?
Mobile-first indexing means Google primarily uses a website’s mobile version for crawling, indexing, and ranking.
Before 2020, Google mainly crawled websites’ desktop versions – However, with the increased use of mobile devices (like smartphones and tablets) for online searches, Google shifted to prioritise the mobile version using the smartphone user agent.
In 2019, Google announced that mobile-first indexing would apply to websites launched after July 1 of that year, impacting new or previously unknown sites. By March 2020, Google reported that around 70% of websites had transitioned to mobile-first indexing, with plans to complete the switch by March 2021.
As of February 2023, some websites still needed to be transitioned from desktop-first to mobile-first indexing. It’s worth noting that it isn’t mandatory for your site to have a mobile version appear in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). If no mobile version exists, Google will index the desktop version. However, a mobile-friendly website is strongly recommended as Google prioritises mobile-first indexing.
Importance of Mobile-First Indexing
Mobile-first indexing is important for SEO as it encourages webmasters to develop mobile-friendly websites – Of course, Google aims to ensure users have the best possible experience when accessing search results on their mobile devices. Research shows that around 65% of searches are now conducted on mobile devices, which shows the increasing importance of optimising for mobile users.
Mobile-First Indexing Best Practices
As mentioned, understanding the importance of mobile-first indexing for search engine optimisation (SEO) and providing an excellent user experience is essential for any website’s success. Your website must be mobile-friendly to align with mobile-first indexing.
Here are some key points to keep in mind:
- Ensure Googlebot can access the content and resources on your mobile pages. Use the same robots meta tags for both your desktop and mobile versions.
- Make sure your primary content is identical on both the desktop and mobile sites; serving less content on mobile can reduce traffic.
- If you’re using structured data, include it on both versions. Also, use the correct URLs in the mobile version’s structured data.
- Ensure meta tags, such as title tags and meta descriptions, are the same across both desktop and mobile versions.
- Whenever possible, use responsive design.
- Regularly review the ‘Mobile Usability’ report in Google Search Console.
- Provide mobile-friendly navigation.
