In today's world, most people use their phones to search the internet. Because of this, Google changed how it looks at websites for ranking them. Now, they mainly use the mobile version of your website to figure out where you should show up in search results. This is called mobile-first indexing.
What is Mobile-First Indexing?
Imagine you have two versions of your website: one for computers (desktop) and one for phones (mobile). In the past, Google primarily looked at the desktop version to understand your content and decide your ranking. With mobile-first indexing, Google's crawler (Googlebot) now mostly looks at the mobile version first. The content and setup of your mobile site are what Google uses to determine your page's relevance and ranking signals.
Why Mobile-First Indexing is Important
If your mobile website is missing content that's on your desktop site, or if important parts of your site don't work correctly on mobile, Google might not see everything. This can mean Google doesn't fully understand your page, which could hurt your rankings. It's vital that the mobile version gives Googlebot all the information it needs.
Key Things to Check for Mobile-First Indexing
Making sure your site works well with mobile-first indexing mainly comes down to two things: how your site adjusts to different screens (responsive design) and making sure the content and technical parts are the same on mobile and desktop.
Responsive Design is Best: This is the most recommended way to build a mobile-friendly site. With responsive design, your website's layout and content automatically change to fit whatever screen size someone is using, from a large monitor to a small phone. You use the same web address and the same HTML code for both. This makes mobile-first indexing much simpler because Googlebot sees the exact same content and code as a desktop user, just arranged differently.
Content Should Be the Same (Content Parity): Whatever important text, images, videos, or other content you have on your desktop site, make sure it's also present and easily viewable on your mobile site. Don't hide crucial information on mobile that users (or Googlebot) have to tap or click extra to see. All important content should be in the main mobile view.
Technical Stuff Needs to Match (Technical Parity): Beyond just the visible content, the important technical parts of your page should be the same or work correctly on mobile:
Structured Data: If you use Schema markup (that special code we talked about) on your desktop pages, make sure it's also on your mobile pages and is correct.
Meta Robots Tags: Check that you don't have noindex or nofollow tags on your mobile pages if you don't want them there on desktop. These tags tell Google whether to index a page or follow its links.
Canonical Tags: If you use canonical tags to point to the main version of a page, make sure they are set up correctly on the mobile version too (especially important if you aren't using responsive design).
hreflang Tags: If you use these tags for websites in different languages or countries, ensure they are correct on the mobile version of your pages.
Site Speed: Mobile speed is very important for user experience and indexing. Make sure your mobile site loads quickly.
Internal Links: All the links on your mobile site should be the same and work just like they do on your desktop site.
Robots.txt: Your robots.txt file should not block Googlebot from crawling your mobile site or any files (like CSS or JavaScript) it needs to see to understand the page layout and content.
While responsive design using the same code for all devices is the easiest way to ensure parity, some sites use different methods (like having a separate "m.dot" site or serving different code to mobile users). Whatever setup you have, the goal for mobile-first indexing is to make sure Googlebot can access and see all your important content and technical elements on your mobile version.
Tools to Help Check
You can use these tools to see how Google sees your mobile site:
Google Search Console: The "Mobile Usability" report tells you if Google finds major mobile-friendliness issues. The URL Inspection tool shows you exactly how Googlebot renders a specific page on mobile and what resources it loaded.
PageSpeed Insights: Check your mobile speed and Core Web Vitals scores.
Google's Mobile-Friendly Test: A quick tool to see if Google considers a page mobile-friendly.
Optimizing for mobile-first indexing is no longer optional; it's how Google works. Ensuring your mobile site has the same great content and technical setup as your desktop site is key to performing well in today's search results.
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