Google and Mobile-First Indexing: What You Need to Know
The Move to Mobile-First Indexing
Consider This When Configuring
- Ensure to serve structured markup for both the mobile and desktop versions.
- Avoid copious amounts of markup non-relevant to the specific information content of each document when adding structured data to a mobile site.
- Take advantage of the robots.txt testing tool to confirm that your mobile variant is accessible to Googlebot.
- Site owners who have only verified their desktop site in Google’s Search Console should add and verify the mobile version.
- If you’re working only with a desktop site, Google will continue to index your desktop site as usual – even if a mobile user-agent is being used to view your site.
Functional Desktop Still Better Than Broken Mobile
If you are in the midst of building a mobile version of your website, remember a functional desktop-oriented variant is more beneficial than an incomplete or broken mobile version. Take it from us when we tell you it’s better to build up your mobile site characteristics and launch it once fully ready.
The Bottom Line
Although Google’s search algorithms and indexing is an ever-shifting plane, the mobile-first indexing is the first move in the company’s planned shift to looking primarily at mobile content rather than desktop when deciding how to rank results. With regard to SEO, this has really transitioned from being a technical skill to an art. Today’s SEO authors have to know and understand more than just code and ranking signals, they have to know how to use design to influence rankings.