Google moving to mobile-first index
Google has announced that its algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site.
Most people are searching on Google using a mobile device, but Google’s ranking systems still typically look at the desktop version of a page’s content to evaluate its relevance.
“This can cause issues when the mobile page has less content than the desktop page because our algorithms are not evaluating the actual page that is seen by a mobile searcher,” said Google.
Google is now running experiments to make its index mobile-first.
“Our algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site.”
Below are recommendations to help webmasters prepare for a mobile-focussed index.
- A responsive site or a dynamic serving site where the content and markup is equivalent across mobile and desktop should mean no changes are needed.
- A site configuration where the primary content and markup is different across mobile and desktop will require changes.
- Serve structured markup for both the desktop and mobile version.
- Verify the equivalence of their structured markup across desktop and mobile by typing the URLs of both versions into the Structured Data Testing Tool and comparing the output.
- When adding structured data to a mobile site, avoid large amounts of markup that isn’t relevant.
- Use the robots.txt testing tool to verify that your mobile version is accessible to Googlebot.
- Sites do not have to make changes to their canonical links.
- Verify your mobile version of the site in Search Console.
- If you only have a desktop site, Google will index your desktop site – even if Google is using a mobile user agent to view your site.
- For a mobile version of your site, remember that a functional desktop-oriented site can be better than a broken or incomplete mobile version.
Now read: What South Africans ask Google
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