This week, I’ve been getting regular emails from Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) to let me know that my own sites and those of my clients that I’ve added to the console have been switched to “Mobile-first” indexing.
What this basically means is that the results in Google searches will show content primarily from the mobile version of your website….IF you have one! If you do or your website is fully responsive and adaptable to mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets then you need do nothing for the most part.
If however your website is currently setup any the following ways, you may need to act to avoid the loss of ranking and possible drop in the search results:
- No Mobile version,
- No Responsive version,
- A Mobile version that doesn’t have the same quality, comprehensive content and tags as your main site,
- An old Mobile version on a separate domain, ie – m.mysite.com.
The first thing you need to do is test to see if your site has a mobile friendly version or if the main site is mobile friendly. You can do that with Google’s own tool here:
search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
If all is well with that then you need not worry. If your site is shown to be not mobile friendly though you may need to make it so to avoid issues. Here are the options:
- Rebuild the site with a fully responsive design (best, future proofed option),
- Add a Mobile friendly plugin (If your site is WordPress or CMS based).
Here’s some further reading on the subject of Mobile-first Indexing:
Google – webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/03/rolling-out-mobile-first-indexing.html
Yoast – yoast.com/5-things-about-mobile-first-indexing/
Please get in touch if you need further advice.
Leon
Reverb Studios Design 