Google moves to clarify mobile-first indexing confusion

Posted by Edith MacLeod on 15 Jun, 2018
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A series of tweets aims to provide clarity on a number of issues.

mobile indexing.

The roll-out of Google’s mobile-first indexing has led to some confusion and uncertainty among webmasters. Google yesterday issued a series of tweets aimed at clearing up common misconceptions around a number of issues.

URLs in search

If Google sees your site has different URLs for mobile and desktop, it will show the mobile URL to mobile users and the desktop URL to desktop users. The mobile version is the content indexed in both cases.

URLs

Crawled counts

The number of crawled counts generally won’t change but the balance will shift to mostly mobile. Google may temporarily crawl more when your site shifts over to mobile-first indexing.

crawl

Cached page

A bug means a cached page is not being shown for many mobile-first indexed sites. Google is working to fix this and it doesn’t impact on crawling, indexing or ranking.

cached page

Speed update

The speed update due in July, after which page speed will become a ranking factor in mobile search, is not related to mobile-first indexing.

speed update

Mobile User Interface

Google says hamburger and accordion structures are fine on mobile sites.

mobile UI

Requirements for mobile-first indexing

While confirming that mobile friendliness and a mobile responsive layout are not requirements for mobile-first indexing, Google says it’s about time to abandon desktop only and embrace mobile.

requirements

Ranking

Google confirms that being in the mobile-first index is not a ranking factor.


ranking

For more information and documentation on mobile and mobile-first indexing, see:

https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/mobile-first-indexing
https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/03/rolling-out-mobile-first-indexing.html

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