“Mobile-first indexing means that Googlebot will now use the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking, to better help our (primarily mobile) users find what they’re looking for. Google’s crawling, indexing, and ranking systems have historically used the desktop version of your site’s content, which can cause issues for mobile searchers when the desktop version differs from the mobile version.”
– Google Official Source.
Google Mobile First Now Means Just That
As a webmaster on all of my clients websites I have been getting the above email notification on a regular basis informing me of the shift in emphasis on how Google is ranking websites. Thankfully I have only been building high performance mobile friendly websites for my clients over the last 5 years with 100% of my clients websites being totally device responsive. As such the notifications I have been getting confirm that the mobile content of each of the sites has been successfully found and indexed by the search engines.
Sites that were built pre 2014 are most likely not built to mobile responsive standards and as such these sites may run foul of Googles new search rules. In essence, if your website does not return a version which responds to the device on which it is being viewed, such as a mobile phone or tablet, then it is non mobile responsive. As Google has made clear above “Mobile-first indexing means that Googlebot will now use the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking”, if your site is not mobile responsive then it will not have a mobile version for Google to Index, and this can quickly kill your websites ranking. Where before this, having a non mobile responsive website would only adverse your website ranking when searched for using such a device, it now is being adversely affected on every device. Let me explain this clearer in an example.
Before Mobile First Indexing
Johnny is looking for new windows for his house, he uses his desktop computer to search for a supplier and gets results for all websites wether they are mobile friendly or not. His wife Ann uses her mobile phone to search for companies at the same time, however as Google has recognised that she is searching on a mobile device and wants to give her the best User Experience her results return websites that have a Mobile responsive website above those which do not.
After Mobile First Indexing
Johnny is looking for new windows for his house, he uses his desktop computer to search for a supplier, Ann again is using her mobile phone, the difference now is that Google no longer differentiates between the devices being used, instead it has determined that sites which have a Mobile responsive version should be ranked higher than those which dont and as such returns results for Mobile responsive websites above those of non responsive websites.
“Near Me” Mobile Searches are having a massive affect on how people are making purchases in the real world…
Ill cover more about this in an upcoming Blog Post, to read this as soon as it is launched subscribe to my Newsletter here.
