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.

If your website has been live for many years it will have gained some traction in search returns, however with this massive shift in Googles criteria all of those accumulated merit points will be quickly lost, websites of old are being killed off as the new Mobile first era catches fire. It is essential that you do not get left behind, if you haven’t done so already then make upgrading your website to a Mobile First Indexing friendly one your priority before it is too late.