Mobile-First Indexing

What is Mobile-First Indexing?

Mobile-first indexing means that Google primarily uses the mobile version of a website’s content for crawling, indexing, and ranking.

Before 2020, Google predominantly crawled the desktop version of a website. However, as the use of mobile devices – such as smartphones and tablets – for conducting online searches has dramatically increased, Google decided to prioritize crawling and indexing the mobile version of websites using the smartphone user-agent.

This transition had been anticipated for some time. In fact, the first reports of Google’s experiments with mobile-first indexing emerged in 2016.

Subsequently, in 2019, Google announced that mobile-first indexing would be applied to websites launched after July 1 of that year. Essentially, the changes affected websites that were either new or previously unknown to Google.

By March 2020, based on Google’s reports, approximately 70% of crawled websites had transitioned to mobile-first indexing. The aim was to complete this switch by March 2021.

However, as of February 2023, Google still needed to transition some sites from desktop-first to mobile-first indexing.

It’s important to note that it’s not mandatory for your website to have a mobile version to be shown in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). If a mobile version isn’t available, Google will simply index your website’s desktop version. Nonetheless, having a mobile-friendly website is strongly recommended, as Google’s indexing system will continue to prioritize mobile websites.

Why is mobile-first indexing important?

Mobile-first indexing is important because it encourages webmasters to create mobile-friendly websites. Google’s objective is to ensure that its users receive the best possible experience when accessing search results from their mobile devices.

Numerous studies have revealed that approximately 65% of searches are conducted on mobile devices. This statistic underscores the growing importance of catering to mobile users.

Mobile-first indexing best practices

Understanding the importance of mobile-first indexing for both search engine optimization and providing a superior user experience is crucial to the success of any website. Thus, your website needs to be mobile-friendly to align with mobile-first indexing.

Here are the key points to bear in mind:

1. Ensure that Googlebot can access the content and resources on your mobile pages. Use the same robots meta tags for both your desktop and mobile website.
2. Make sure your primary content is identical on both the desktop and mobile versions. Serving less content on the mobile version can lead to a decline in traffic.
3. If you’re employing structured data, ensure it’s included on both website versions. Also, use the correct URLs in the mobile version’s structured data.
4. Ensure that meta tags - namely, the title tag and meta descriptions - are the same on both website versions.
5. Use responsive design, if possible.
6. Regularly check the ‘Mobile usability’ report in Google Search Console.
7. Offer mobile-friendly navigation.

Additionally, you can use our free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to run a Site Audit using a mobile user-agent. This will help you detect any SEO issues on your website.”