In a significant development, Google has completed its transition to mobile-first indexing, as annouced on Tuesday. This entails that Google will now prioritise mobile versions of pages while crawling and indexing content.
This change embodies Google’s growing emphasis on mobile devices, a journey that began in 2015. During that period, Google tweaked its search algorithm to favour sites deemed “mobile-friendly”.
Progressing into the next year, the firm initiated the mobile-first indexing process by crawling mobile pages instead of the desktop ones.
Celebrating this landmark, Google expressed in an announcement:
“Over the years, mobile web traffic has continued to grow; in some regions, people almost exclusively use their phone to access the internet. Thank you โ site owners, SEOs, web developers, designers, and everyone who works on websites โ for helping to make the mobile web a success!”
Crawling mobile optimises user experience
With global internet usage via mobile now eclipsing that of desktop, crawling the mobile versions of pages aligns more accurately with what users experience when searching on their phones.
Consequently, websites have gradually evolved to ensure their mobile pages are as comprehensive and full-featured as their desktop counterparts.
Handling of remaining desktop-only sites by Google
Google acknowledged that a small fraction of sites are yet to be optimised for mobile. For these outliers, the tech giant will continue to crawl the desktop versions for now.
Moreover, there will be a reduction in the crawling of desktop pages to save on resources.
Adjustments to Search Console
With this transition, Google is set to remove indexing crawler data from its Search Console, a tool for webmasters. Post-transition, this data becomes redundant as all functional sites are now being crawled via mobile.
This long-term transition to mobile-first indexing mirrors the rising importance of mobile devices in the global internet usage scenario.
Now that the transition is complete, Google has fully committed to mobile as the principal avenue through which users access the web.
