Glossary keyword - Mobile-first Indexing

Mobile-first indexing implies that Google primarily indexes the content from the mobile version of websites for ranking purposes. In the past, the content primarily used for indexing websites is the desktop version to determine relevance to search queries. However, times have changed, and major web users now use their mobile devices to access the web. 

Hence, Google bots predominantly use the smartphone agent to crawl and index pages. Mobile-first indexing was set as the operating default of Google bots on July 1, 2019. Since then, all websites added to the web get into google index by this means. For older sites, Google continues to evaluate and monitor them using mobile-first best practices. 

Best Practices

It is, therefore, important to follow mobile-first best practices to ensure your site remains relevant and ranks high on SERP. Some of these best practices are as follows: 

Ensure free Acces for Googlebot

It is essential that the mobile resources and page contents of your site remain accessible to Googlebot. This is best achieved by taking measure such as: 

• Giving the desktop and mobile site the same robot tags.
• Avoid loading user interactive content upon entry to site or pages. 
• Make your resources crawlable for Google

Keep Content the Same Across Mobile and Desktop 

If you have more content on your desktop site than your mobile site, you might need to update the content on the mobile site. The aim is to make your mobile site just as good as the desktop version. After all, the greater portion of the mobile-first indexing of your site comes from its mobile content. 

Verify Your Structured Data

If your site has structured data, ensure that both versions, mobile, and desktop have it present. You want to check the following: 

• Ensure that your structured data also go with correct URLs
• Train Data Highlighters on your mobile site if you use them.