{"id":4302,"date":"2018-03-22T12:39:21","date_gmt":"2018-03-22T12:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.seodiscovery.com\/?p=4302"},"modified":"2025-02-12T05:25:30","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T05:25:30","slug":"preparing-googles-mobile-first-index-infographic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seodiscovery.com\/blog\/preparing-googles-mobile-first-index-infographic\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparing for Google’s Mobile-First Index [INFOGRAPHIC]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

And Google\u2019s biggest change in the online search\nindustry is almost here… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the much-awaited Google Mobile-First Index Algorithm. While Google has not yet launched the update officially, it impacts is clearly visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is \u201cMobile-First Indexing\u201d?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As the name suggests, the mobile-first index\nupdate means Google will now rank websites based on their mobile version only.\nWhile the desktop sites will not experience any penalty, their rankings would\ngreatly suffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mobile-first indexing is exactly what it sounds\nlike. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the name suggests, mobile-first indexing is\nall about a mobile-friendly website and how it can rank well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mobile version of your website is something\nthat Google considers as a plus point and includes in its index at the first\npoint. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It just means that the mobile version of your website becomes the starting point for what Google includes in its index and the baseline for how Google determines a website’s rankings<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you keep on monitoring crawl bot traffic to\nyour site, you may analyse the increase in traffic from your smartphone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, the desktop site can still be included in\nthe index, but the lack of a mobile-friendly experience could impact negatively\non the rankings of that site, and a site with a better mobile experience would\npotentially receive a rankings boost even for searchers on a desktop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, if you still do not have a mobile version of\nyour websites, it\u2019s time for you to tie your shoelaces to avoid a great fall!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Google Webmasters Blog:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Accessing the internet via smartphones has grown\nexponentially in the last few years and has overtaken desktops. Therefore, it\nis no surprise that Google is changing everything and prioritizing the mobile\nversions of websites. The skyrocketing searching on mobile devices means\nMobile-First Indexing is going to have a big impact on the traffic to many\nwebsites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cTo make our results more useful, we\u2019ve begun experiments to make our index mobile-first. Although our search index will continue to be a single index of websites and apps, our algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site\u2019s content to rank pages from that site, to understand structured data, and to show snippets from those pages in our results. Of course, while our index will be built from mobile documents, we\u2019re going to continue to build a great search experience for all users, whether they come from mobile or desktop devices.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Result: Webmasters who have a website\noptimized for mobile will rank well on both mobile and desktop. However, if\nyour website doesn\u2019t perform well on the mobile, it will drop your site\nrankings on both mobile and desktop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What E-marketers can do About It?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While Google\u2019s new update is not expected to\nfully roll out for another few months and is being tested thoroughly, this\ndoesn\u2019t mean that webmasters can sit back and relax. It is advisable for them\nto get ready for the major changes that are coming sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the things you can do to prepare your\nwebsite to face the mobile-first indexing like a Hero:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SEO for Mobile<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1) Have a Mobile-Friendly Website: <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Is your website responsive? A responsive design<\/a> means that users can view and interact with your website on mobiles or other smart devices irrespective of their screen sizes, i.e., your website is smart or responsive enough to adjust itself depending on the size of the screen it is being viewed on. Further, this enhances the user-experience of those who are accessing your website from different devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2) Create Mobile-Friendly Content: <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Besides the website look, businesses should also\nensure that their content is mobile-friendly. To ensure your content is as\nresponsive and mobile-friendly, you will have to understand your user behaviour\nand their preferences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For your users to stay longer on your website,\nfeeding them high quality and engaging content will be a great idea. Hence,\ndevelop high-quality content like audios, videos, images, etc., that tells\nstories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3) Work on the Site Speed: <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Undebatable, your site speed is an essential thing to consider in order to improve usability, and a longer stay especially on the mobile. Google already considers page speed when it comes to rank a page and it will continue to do so when the mobile-first index is fully released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To achieve this, test your website in Google\u2019s PageSpeed Insights Tool<\/a> and check if your site is loading in around three seconds. If not, look into the reasons behind this and optimize your site for the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4) Internal Linking: <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Proper internal linking on mobile is a must to\nensure that your users don\u2019t struggle to navigate for accessing particular\ninformation that can be easily discovered on the desktop version of your site.\nSame can happen when Google crawls the mobile website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence, it will be important that the internal\nlinking on the mobile site closely replicate the desktop to prevent a drop in\nyour site rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to Prepare Your Site for Mobile-First\nIndexing<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Mobile-first indexing is ultimately about the mobile-friendliness of your site. A combination of the right tools and your own experience will help optimize the site for mobile<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The right tool\u2014A good tool for assessing how well\nyour site functions on mobile devices is Google\u2019s own Mobile-Friendliness Tool.\nIf Google finds things that hinder a mobile experience on your site, it will\ntell you what they are so you can get your web dev team to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your own experience\u2014Additionally, take a few\nminutes to pull up your site on your own mobile device and navigate through it.\nClick on links, fill out forms, etc. Just because Google doesn\u2019t find technical\nerrors or common display issues, doesn\u2019t mean the site provides the best mobile\nexperience that it could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experiencing and working with the site on your\nown mobile device\u2014and asking your team or a few friends to do so on their\ndevices\u2014will provide insights that no mobile simulator can generate. You don\u2019t\njust want your mobile site to be compatible, you want it to be the best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Common questions about mobile-first indexing:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When did mobile-first indexing begin?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

It all started in November of 2016 as Google\nfirst announced the idea of mobile-first indexing. Moving forward nearly after\na year John Mueller said that testing for mobile-first indexing had just gone\nlive. Intending to release it in batches, many of the first sites were\ndesktop-only sites which made perfect sense. It meant that sites having only\none version would be the easiest to carry over as there were no discrepancies\nbetween mobile and desktop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is mobile-first indexing all about adding mobile\npages to a separate mobile index?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In the case of mobile-first indexing, there is\nonly one index and it’s the one that Google uses now. The changes in\nmobile-first indexing do not generate a new \u201cmobile-first\u201d index, nor is it about\ncreating a separate \u201cmobile index\u201d with a \u201cdesktop index\u201d remaining active.\nInstead, it simply changes how content is added to the existing index.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if I don\u2019t have a mobile version of my site?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

If you don\u2019t have a mobile-friendly version of\nyour website and even your desktop version is not mobile-friendly, your content\ncan still be indexed by Google. However, you may not rank that well when\ncompared to other mobile-friendly websites. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not owning a mobile-friendly website may in-turn\nnegatively impact your overall rankings on desktop search as well as mobile\nsearch results because it will offer poorer user experience than other\nmobile-friendly sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will this change the Google rankings in a big\nway?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Both Gary Illyes and Paul Haahr from Google said\nthat it’s something that should definitely not affect the overall rankings. In\nfact, they want there to be minimal change in rankings around this update. But,\nof course, it is too early to tell, they said \u2014 but their goal is not to have\nthis indexing change impact the current rankings too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I see the change and the impact in the search\nresults now?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Google said that individuals shouldn\u2019t be able to\nsee the change and impact of the mobile-first index rollout. In fact, according\nto Google, there is little to no impact after this update is fully rolled out.\nMoreover, Paul Haahr said, \u201cI would be very surprised to detect any effects of\nmobile-first indexing at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mobile-First Indexing Myths<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Myth 1: Mobile-first indexing directly impacts\nrankings.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Google\u2019s priority is to make sure that the change\nis quite seamless and that your rankings are not negatively impacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Myth 2: Mobile-first indexing is the same thing\nas mobile-friendliness<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

There’s no denial to the fact that Google\nconfirms these two items are completely independent of one another.\nMobile-friendliness is quite important as it is still used as a ranking factor,\nbut it is a completely different thing from mobile-first indexing. Many sites\nthat are not mobile-friendly have been moved to mobile-first indexing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Myth 3: Keeping your site in poor quality is a\nsmart strategy for helping you avoid the transition.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In fact, in a world of rapid updations and high\ncompetition, it doesn\u2019t make any sense to prohibit your growth and it’s\nsomething Google agrees with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional Mobile-First Indexing Tips<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

1. Consider switching to responsive design (if\nyou don\u2019t have one already).<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Moving to a responsive web design eliminates the\nheadache of operating two independent versions and allows content to be a match\non both desktop and mobile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. You no longer need to be afraid of hiding\nstuff behind tabs.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Google has said this in the past too that content\nbehind the tabs holds quite less weight but this will be less of a factor for\nmobile-first indexing moving forward. Google is getting much better at handling\nthis type of content but hasn’t reached quite at the point where you can hide\nvaluable information. It\u2019s still important to keep in mind that if the content\nis shown \u201con click\u201d, crawlers will not be able to access it if shown through\nJavaScript actions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. No more Flash!<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Make sure to avoid serving content through flash\nas it is quite incompatible with mobile devices. Most of the features of flash can\nnow be emulated through markups and coding technologies also.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. A reminder to update your disavow file.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

A great reminder from John Mueller via Glenn Gabe\nearly in July conveys that a lot of sites have been moved over to mobile-first\nindexing if you run an m.dot page make sure that you have uploaded your file\nfor it as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Ensure your mobile version has important,\nhigh-quality content.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Google has suggested that it includes \u201ctext,\nimages (with alt-attributes), and videos in the usual crawlable and indexable\nformats.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Structured data is important for indexing and\nsearch features that users love says Google.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

It should be both on the mobile as well as the\ndesktop version of the website. Moreover, ensure that URLs within the\nstructured data are updated to the mobile version on the particular mobile\npages. We love Luke Carthy\u2019s pro tip from May of 2019 which discusses the best\nway to test this. He advises you to paste in the HTML from GSC\u2019s live\ninspection rather than the URL since Google\u2019s Structured Data Testing Tool\nrelies on a desktop bot, but Google itself uses mobile fetched structured data.\nThis means you\u2019ll get a much more accurate understanding of what Google\u2019s\nrecognizes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of priority types, Google says that you\nshould place a priority on Breadcrumb, Product, and VideoObject structured\ndata. For all other types of structured data, check out schema.org.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. Metadata should be present on both versions of\nthe site.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

It provides valuable hints about the content on a\nparticular page for indexing and serving. For example, you need to ensure that\ntitles and meta descriptions are equivalent across both versions of all pages\non the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. Let Google crawl your resources.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

If you have resources that have different URLs on mobile and desktop, be sure to check that you\u2019re not blocking URLs with the disallow directive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Share this Image On Your Site<\/h3>\n