MOBILE FIRST INDEXING – there is no escape from mobile!
The world has become mobile, and Mobilegeddon is no longer just "one of" the ranking factors of the Google search engine algorithm... Since November 4, 2016, "Mobile First" is no longer just a slogan repeated tirelessly to owners of non-mobile websites, but a fact that will surely freeze the blood in the veins of many a webmaster.
On Friday, November 4th, the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog published a post announcing the beginning of tests designed to change our current perspective on the search algorithm. Keeping pace with the times and trends set by internet users worldwide, the website ranking system is designed to reverse priorities and prioritize mobile versions of sites included in the search engine's index.
Until now, Google-branded bots that visited our pages primarily assessed the content of our desktop version of the site—titles, headings, and text. Their mobile versions, or rather their very presence, were merely an additional plus in the entire range of ratings the bots gave each page . The launch of Mobile First testing aims to reverse this trend and prioritize mobile versions of pages and derive information from them in search results.
What does this mean for website owners?
Above all, it's crucial to ensure a mobile user experience. Having a mobile version of a website is no longer just a nice-to-have, but a necessary element – our "to be or not to be" in search engines. It's also crucial to properly manage its content – stripped-down content from the desktop version may prove insufficient to maintain a top 10 ranking. In a blog post, Google also emphasizes the need to prepare structured data, which helps search engine crawlers distinguish between the types of information on a website . You can read more about structured data HERE . It's also worth paying attention to properly preparing the robots.txt file and adding the mobile version of the website to Google Webmaster Tools, which will allow website owners to quickly identify any errors and obstacles on the way to the top of the SERPs.
(The rest of the article can be found below the form)
Time to test!
Not sure how Google rates your mobile sites? Time to test! Google offers two tools that will help you learn how your site displays on various devices:
- Mobile Friendly Test – its result also provides an answer to the question of how Google perceives a given website. The test is conducted by a Google Bot, so before testing the site, it's worth checking whether you're blocking its access via incorrect meta robots or robots.txt files.
- TestMySite – will tell you how the website is perceived by the user and will point out errors that may affect its negative reception.
Testing of this indexing model will continue for several months before it becomes a permanent fixture in the search engine. This gives site owners and creators time to prepare for the changes and protect their rankings against any sudden declines. Ignorance and sloppiness regarding Mobilegeddon will certainly not be easily forgiven.
Summary
The above article covers the following topics:
- the impact of Mobile First Indexing on how Google ranks websites,
- adapting the website to Google requirements through mobile and technical optimization,
- testing mobile sites using Google tools to prepare for Mobile First Indexing and improve search engine visibility.
