Google Started Rolling Out Mobile-First Indexing
Posted On : March 27th, 2018 By : Durga Prasad Kundu To : Google Algorithm Update, SEO NewsFinally, Google has made an official announcement that they have started rolling out mobile-first indexing. Yes! After a year and half of experimentation and testing, they have started migrating websites that follow the best practices for mobile-first indexing.
This is not the beginning of mobile-first indexing because previously Google informed us that limited numbers of sites have already been migrated to mobile-first indexing. But, with this announcement, it seems like this roll out will cover huge numbers of websites.
According to Google, with mobile-first indexing they will use the mobile version of a page for indexing and ranking which will help primary mobile users to find what they are searching for.
Also Google clarified that mobile-first index is not different from their main index and for websites having AMP & non-AMP pages, Google will prefer to index the mobile version of the non-AMP page.
Webmasters who want to know whether their sites have been migrated to mobile first indexing or not can check it via Google Search Console. Have a look at the screenshot below.
With mobile-first indexing, webmasters will see
- Increased crawl rate from the Smartphone Googlebot and
- Mobile version of pages in search results & Google cached pages
Impact on ranking
With every Google Update, we always try to measure the impact of the update on ranking. But, this time Google clearly mentioned that mobile-first indexing has no impact on rankings. Mobile-first indexing is all about how Google gathers content.
But what happens if your mobile content differs from your desktop version? In last Pubcon we have heard a different view from Gary Illyes.
But make no confusion. Technically mobile-first indexing is all about crawling & indexing but not ranking.
So, it is not going to hurt your ranking as long as you keep content of both desktop 7 mobile version almost same. Else, your ranking might hurt.
Along with this, Google also encouraged webmasters to make their content mobile-friendly. With the Mobile-friendly Update, Google informed us about the importance of mobile friendly content. Mobile-friendly content will definitely rank higher for mobile searches. So, it’s definitely becomes a priority for webmasters to make their content mobile friendly.
He is the leading web developer at SUVAANCE Internet Marketing Services Pvt. Ltd. Being a fanatical coder & developer; he keeps surprising others with unique insights in designing issues and sharing humorous jokes in social platforms as well!
