On Monday, July 3, 2024, John Mueller announced a significant change in Google's indexing process. The search engine giant is now in the final stages of transitioning to a mobile-first index. From July 5, 2024, all websites will be crawled using the mobile Googlebot.
What does this mean for your site? The answer might surprise you.
This change is part of Google’s seven-year mission for a mobile-first index. Google created the index because more and more people started to search on smartphones, and its algorithms were not evaluating the mobile page.
Mueller states that Google has been using a smartphone crawler for a while now to help simplify its systems. Only a small number of sites are still crawled with desktop Googlebot, which is set to change tomorrow.
“The largest part of the web is already being crawled like this, and there is no change in crawling for these sites. After July 5, 2024, we'll crawl and index these sites with only Googlebot Smartphone. If your site's content is not accessible at all with a mobile device, it will no longer be indexable.”
So, if your site loads on mobile, you have nothing to worry about.
It's important to note that Google is NOT stating that non-mobile-friendly sites will be deindexed. This should provide some reassurance. As long as your site loads on mobile, it’s safe. Google will index a site’s desktop interface as long as it loads on mobile.
Meuller also states that SEOs may see desktop Googlebot for certain Search features.
“You may still find Googlebot Desktop in your server logs and reporting. For example, among a few other Search features, Googlebot Desktop is sometimes used when crawling for product listings and Google for Jobs.”
Google announced last year that the mobile-first indexing project was complete. However, with this new announcement, it seems Google had some last-minute updates.
If you feel that this indexing change may impact you, look to Google’s mobile site indexing best practices:
- Make sure Google can access and render your content;
- Make sure that content is the same on desktop and mobile;
- Check your structured data;
- Put the same metadata on both versions of your site;
- Check the placement of your ads;
- Check visual content.
Google also gives troubleshooting advice and additional best practices for separate URLs.
By focusing on mobile optimization, SEOs can comply with Google's indexing requirements and enhance the overall user experience for mobile visitors, ultimately driving better engagement and conversions.
