Is Your Website Ready? The Big Impact of Google’s Mobile-First Index
Google’s Mobile-first Index ranks the search results based only on the mobile-version of the page. And yes, this occurs even if you’re searching from a desktop. Before this update, Google’s index would use a mix of desktop and mobile results. So if someone searched from an iPhone, Google would show them mobile results. And if someone searched for something on a desktop, they’d get “desktop results”.
Today, no matter what device you use, Google shows you results from their mobile index.
I’ll have A LOT more on making sure your site is optimized for mobile SEO in chapters 3, 4 and 5.
Is Google’s Mobile-First Index a Big Deal?
It depends.
If your site is already perfectly optimized for mobile, you should be good. So if your site…
- Loads resources across all devices
- Doesn’t hide content on mobile versions of your site
- Loads quickly like mobile users expect
- Has working internal links and redirects
- Boasts a UX that’s optimized for any device that your visitors use
Then yeah, you’re good. If not, you may notice a rankings drop as Google rolls this out. That’s why the rest of this guide is dedicated to helping you optimize your site for mobile.
What Does Google Consider “Mobile Index”?
To most people, a “Mobile device” means a smartphone or tablet.
However, Google puts tablets “in their own class” and states: “when we speak of mobile devices, we generally do not include tablets in the definition”. In other words, according to Google: mobile=smartphones.
Honestly, this shouldn’t impact your mobile SEO all that much. The main idea here is to optimize your site for ANY device. This includes phones, tablet… or anything else that Elon Musk invents in the future.
