Are you ready for the Google mobile-first index? That is a fair question that has been shaking the SEO world lately. Google has been talking about this change for the last few months and it seems that the update has been rolled out sooner than expected. Facts are since May 2015, mobile searches are more important than the desktop ones on Google. In this context, having more relevant mobile results has become an key objective for the search engine.
Moreover, John Mueller from Google has lately stated that a few sites were already being tested on the mobile-first index and that the only way to verify if you were impacted was to check your log files. In this article, we are going to discuss the whole concept, how you can monitor this transition and how to be prepared.
What is the mobile-first index?
The mobile-first index aims at ranking websites regarding how Google has crawled the mobile version rather than the desktop version. This means Google will create and rank its search listings based on the mobile version of content, even for listings that are shown to desktop users and will use the desktop version only if the mobile version is not available.
As the number of searchers on mobile continues to grow and further surpass the number of desktop users, Google has decided to take action. Google realized that it makes more sense to favorise this large base of mobile users and provide them with the best possible search results and user experience in terms of content.
Until now, the mobile rankings were based on the desktop version of sites. In November 2016, Google was giving details about the mobile-first index but without communicating about an official release date.
The mobile-first index represents a major shift regarding the way Google discovers, evaluates and prioritize content.
What does Google say about it?
On December 15th, John Mueller announced that Google had started testing some sites within its mobile-first index and showed how SEOs could identify if they have made the transition!
I think you would probably recognize it in the log files. If you see, if you look now probably something like 80% of the crawling is with the Googlebot desktop and maybe 20% is with mobile with the smartphone Googlebot.
And probably that will shift over and that most of the crawling will be done with the smartphone Googlebot and less crawling with the desktop Googlebot.
So if you like really watch out for your log files probably you can notice that fairly obviously. John Mueller
How to know if you are part of the mobile-first index?
As just a few sites has made the transition to the Google’s mobile-first index, there is not that much documentation yet regarding how to monitor it. A few days ago, John Mueller officially advices to take a look at your log files to notice the transition. He also explains that on an average a site gets about 80% of the crawl from Googlebot desktop and approximately 20% is expected from Googlebot smartphone. If your site has been moved to the mobile-first index, the previous trend should reverse.
Google mobile and Google desktop hits- Oncrawl Log Files Monitoring Tool
At Oncrawl, we know since a long time that monitoring your log files is essential to have a complete and accurate overview of how your website behaves and how search engines are crawling it. Log files don’t have to be technical and scary. Using a comprehensive log files analyzer like Oncrawl offers the ability to get a clear and user-friendly picture of what has been made on your website by users and search engines bots. If you are facing a clear shift regarding the repartition between google desktop and google mobile, chances are you have been moved to the mobile-first index.
How to be prepared for the Mobile-First index?
Google has shared a couple of recommendations regarding this new way to index websites. If you don’t have a mobile version of your website, there is no reason to worry. The search engine will instead crawl your desktop version.
If you only have a desktop site, we’ll continue to index your desktop site just fine, even if we’re using a mobile user agent to view your site, Doantam Phan, Product Manager at Google
On the other hand, if you own a mobile version, be sure contents and links are similar to your desktop version so that Google continues to rank your site as it did with your desktop version. Actually, if Google notices less content on a mobile page compare to the desktop version of this page, then it will probably just see the mobile version with less content.
If you need to optimize content organization on the mobile version, Gary Illyes from Google has stated that expandable content like tabs, boxes or accordions could be a valuable solution for user experience and won’t be regarded as having less content on a page.
In fact, a responsive approach seems to be the easiest way to keep the same amount of content on a page-by-page basis between desktop and mobile.
Overall, Google has not yet confirmed the real impact of mobile-first index on rankings but chances are it will come along the mobile-friendly update that fosters optimized results on mobile.
How to optimize your website for the mobile-first index?
There are different points to focus on to get ready for the mobile-first index global release.
Content
Compare your content between your mobile and desktop version. Be sure that the same qualitative, informative and user-friendly content is also available on your mobile version. Check your structured data as they are important for better indexing: it should be both on the mobile and desktop version of the site.
Internal linking
Verify if your mobile version uses dynamic serving or separate URLs from the desktop website. It can cause internal linking issues and user experience problems if it is harder for readers to find content when they are reading the site on mobile than they would have if they were viewing it on a desktop. For sites using separate mobile URLs, keep the existing link rel=canonical and link rel=alternate elements between these versions.
Performance
Page speed is an important ranking factor that have even more importance on mobile. In most cases, mobile and desktop versions don’t have the same performances regarding loading times. The point is not to have two exactly identical numbers but to have good performance on both version.
Crawl budget
Be sure to optimize your crawl budget for mobile crawling. Log files can be used to manage issues potentially hurting your crawl budget such as orphan pages, 4xx errors, crawl errors or abnormal crawl activities.
Google has shared a handy post about the on-site optimizations that can be made. And you, have you seen any changes recently?
Bonjour, comment allez vous gérer le fait que désormais le bot Google pour mobiles et desktop porte le même nom ?
Merci, excellentes fêtes et joyeux Noël :)
Bertrand
(SOURCE : https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1061943?hl=fr )
Bonjour Bertrand,
Merci pour cette remarque intéressante. En effet les tokens portent le même nom mais les chaînes complètes du user agent présentent dans les logs sont bien différentes:
Desktop : Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
Mobile : Mozilla/5.0 (Linux ; Android 6.0.1 ; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, comme Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2272.96 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible ; Googlebot/2.1 ; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
Aucun soucis pour nous donc de les dissocier :)
Bonnes fêtes à vous également !
Mobile-First Indexing SEO information
1579 words.
With the development and popularity of search engine optimization, a popular topic happens to be mobile-first indexing as one
of Google’s latest developments in making their search results more mobile-friendly. What this means to an average business
owner may cause confusion and different opinions. People would like to know what they have to change and how to make their
website mobile-friendly to reflect the latest trends in Google. Within this article, I will explain what exactly mobile-first
indexing means and what you need to do with it. I will also answer common questions and give you insight into how to implement
this trend into your website so you can maximize the beneficial attributes of search engine optimization and your efforts with
it. Continue reading below as we take a look at this current trend and how you can benefit from it immediately.
Mobile-first indexing means that the mobile format of your website will be what Google includes in their index and how they
determine how your website is positioned in the rankings. It is referred to as mobile-first because it also includes desktop
versions of a site in the index, however, the mobile options of websites are ranked higher. Google wants their mobile users to
have the best experience possible and a site that is mobile friendly will potentially rank higher in the index including for
users who search from their computer. With the mobile-first indexing trend, your mobile version of your website will be considered
the primary version of your website. So if the mobile format of your website and the desktop version are the same then, in theory,
you should not have any problems with your site’s rankings or performance when being searched.
Google has changed the way it perceives and prioritizes crawling and indexing websites. Up until recently a desktop version of
a website was considered the primary version and the mobile version was considered the alternate format. Google has encouraged
webmasters to create a separate mobile version of the website with switchboard tags which are an alternate HTML tag you can use
on your website. Google may not actually crawl every mobile version of your site and they may just simply list the mobile version
of your site in their search engine rankings. The desktop version of a website used to be the priority for SEO and marketing teams
and this version of the website was typically full of content and structured data. The mobile version of the site may have less
content and less markup and structure as well as fewer backlinks.
What should be done about mobile first indexing?
According to Google if your website is identical on a desktop or as a mobile format you may not have to worry about changing or
doing anything differently with your website for SEO. With mobile-first indexing, content that includes collapsed or hidden
tabs due to space restrictions won’t be treated differently than visible content. This type of screen size management is a common
mobile practice. If you happen to have a mobile version of your website there are a few things you will want to be sure of. First,
make sure your content is high quality and is also available on your desktop site. This includes text, videos, and images. Also be
sure your mobile content is easily crawlable and indexable. Be sure to duplicate the same structured data markup on your mobile
and desktop versions of your site. Try to avoid unnecessary structured data if it is not relevant to the content on a page. Also be
sure your meta tags are the equivalent of each version of your site. You should also include social metadata on your mobile page
with such things as your twitter card and other social metadata that is included on the desktop version of your site. Be sure that
your XML and media sitemaps are accessible from the mobile version of your site. This includes robot directives, meta robot tags
and trust signals like a link to your privacy policy page. If you have search console verification from Google search be sure to
include it on your mobile site. Also be sure your host servers can handle increased mobile traffic to your mobile site.
Frequently asked questions about mobile-first indexing.
Does mobile-first indexing add mobile pages to a separate Google Index?
With mobile-first indexing, there is only one Google index. The change with mobile-first indexing does not generate a new mobile-first
index. It just changes how content is added to the existing indexing process.
Is the mobile-first index live and is it affecting my website?
Google has been working on this approach by indexing a small number of websites. It will more than likely take a few years to
reach an index that is only mobile-first. This will be a slow process and you will not have to panic or make dramatic changes
right away. Google will update webmasters and let them know what they need to know.
Will Google only use mobile versions of sites to determine rankings?
Mobile-first means that the mobile version of the website will be the primary version of the site and how it is ranked. But there
could be circumstances that put the desktop version of the site as the primary version if you don’t yet have a mobile version of
your website. You will potentially notice that there are varying ranking results between mobile search results and desktop search
results so you will want to keep track of both.
What would be the cause of Google ranking the desktop version of a site rather than a mobile site?
Google will rank a desktop version of a site if there is no mobile version of the page. If a desktop version of a website has
additional ranking information like backlinks, then this will be taken into consideration. However, there is no guarantee that
Google will rank a desktop version of a site once they have seen the mobile version. There has been no official statement with
this question from Google, but this is a common belief amongst SEO experts.
What do you do if you do not have a mobile version of your website?
If you do not currently have a mobile version of your website a desktop version can still be indexed. However, you may not rank
as high compared to mobile-friendly sites. This could impact your positions and rankings on desktop searches as well as mobile
Google searches. Your search results may be negatively impacted because it may be considered to have a poorer user experience
then other listed sites because of not having a mobile-friendly version.
What happens if you have a large desktop site and a smaller mobile site? Will desktop content not get indexed or ranked?
Google’s end goal is to index and crawl mobile content with the mobile first indexing strategy. If you have a website that is
heavily indexed as a desktop version of your site, Google will not just remove all of your content and start fresh with your
smaller mobile site content. The strategy here is to include valuable and relevant content just like your desktop site to help
it rank higher. Google will slowly cut back on crawling desktop versions of sites so take this factor into consideration when
it comes to using SEO strategies.
How will this affect search engine optimization and making it work in the future?
The mobile-first indexing may change and effect ranking factors in the future and no one truly knows how it will affect things.
The mobile-first indexing may mean that Google is becoming less dependent on traditional links and HTML addresses and how it
effects rankings. Google is moving away from the URL system of organizing content in favor of an API approach rather than the
structured URL style of linking.
Will responsive sites and separate mobile sites be treated differently?
The answer can be confusing but the main factor is how much change you will have to implement with your website to prepare for
this change. If you have a full website you should have everything present on your mobile version of your site as well. You will
want to make sure that the mobile version of your website is optimized for your users which includes such things as page speed,
loading time, navigation, HTML tags etc. With a separate mobile version of your website, you will want to include everything that
your desktop site has. This can be a lot of work but it will be worth it.
Does this change how I present content and advertising on my mobile website?
If your advertising is slow or create a poor user experience you will need to address this issue. Just be sure that the content
of your mobile site is easily accessible. Just make sure that all your content is easily crawlable and accessible for Google’s
robots.
Do you change how you use the rel=canonical/switchboard tags?
Google has stated that if you are using switchboard tags there will be nothing further that you will need to do.
This concludes our report on the mobile-first indexing process and I hope I have answered any questions or concerns you have about
this new process. Google will continue to change their ranking procedure and how they present and display content. Creating a
mobile version of your site is the smartest solution. Make sure you include relevant content and make it easy for Google to crawl.