What is Google indexing?
Indexing is the process Google uses to place search results in a certain order depending on what a user is looking for. If your website is optimised using correct SEO practices, then there is a higher possibility for your website to be found in the SERPs.
Until now, websites have been prioritised by how well they are optimised for a desktop computer. However, Google announced that it will be indexing its search results based on whether a website has been optimised for mobile devices by September 2020.
This date has now changed to March 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this isn’t breaking news as the search engine has said that over 70% of sites are already being indexed in this way.
The rise of mobile has been a global phenomenon, and it has become the number one way of how we receive information on a daily basis. Being the tech giant Google is, it’s no surprise that it foresaw this trend. In fact, it has been working on rolling this out for almost five years, with the process beginning in 2016!
Is my site mobile-first indexed?
It’s highly likely that your website is ready for mobile-first indexing. If not, there’s no need to worry – there are a few things you can do to help it before the deadline.
Optimising a website that is mobile-crawl friendly doesn’t have to be a chore. You don’t need to completely reinvent your brand and you certainly don’t need to start again. It will then help it rank pages based on how well that mobile website performs. Finding out how your website is performing can be simple. Here are some basic checks you can do to ensure your website is mobile (and Google) ready:
- Put the same metadata on both versions of your site
- Make sure that content is the same on desktop and mobile
- Check visual content – use high-quality images and so on
- Follow video best practices
- Check your structured data
The time is now
Now that we officially have a deadline – March 2021 – it is time to perform any necessary updates to make sure your website and its pages are ready to pass being crawled by Google. The better your website is optimised for mobile, the better your chances are that it ranks higher in the Google search lists.
If, for any reason your website is not ready for mobile indexing, you will already have or will receive a warning notice from Google outlining what you can do next.
But, until these changes take a complete effect, you can keep an eye on Google’s recent updates about the changes.
