Mobile First Indexing: what changes in March 2021

by Abdul Rimaaz Abdul Rimaaz Business Consultants UK

Mobile First Indexing: what's changing and how to prepare for the March 2021 Google update

Google has long been working on mobile-first indexing , developed in response to the drastic change in the way people search (and browse) the web and the widespread adoption of mobile devices at virtually every moment of our life: we wake up, we take our smartphones and we hardly put them aside during the rest of the day.

But that's not new: the first announcement that Google was moving away from its algorithms dedicated to the desktop version of a site and was turning to mobile was in 2016.

Do you remember the mobilegeddon of 2015?

It is the name of the Google search engine algorithm update of April 21, 2015, and many were very worried, because in Italy almost no one seemed to be ready for the new smartphone algorithm. The new algorithm was going to enhance those who had the mobile version of the site, in fact leading it to overcome those who did not yet have it.

And in 2016, Google announced that despite most people searching Google using a mobile device, ranking systems typically still scanned the desktop version of a web page's content to assess its relevance to the user.

And again, from 2016 to today Google has given more and more space to mobile, up to the mobile-first indexing of March 2021 ... but in practice it was already starting with mobile first indexing, only until now it did not mean that it would stop indexing desktop sites.

All or most of the new websites launched after July 2019 have automatically switched to mobile-first indexing. The existing sites obviously still have to be moved to the new indexing, but in fact we are already going through a period of change and we have done so in the past few years, even if it is in the coming days that Google will officially be 100% mobile first.

Google: Mobile First Indexing

In fact, by March 2021 Google will change the indexing for all websites from desktop to mobile.

But will this mobile-first indexing change the overall ranking of placement? Not necessarily.

To find out we need to make sure we know what it means and how to optimize our websites, because this update may not necessarily affect the position of our site in Google search results… as long as certain conditions are met.

Let's see some key points together.

Control of crawling with Google Search Console

Remember that there is only one Google index and it will consider the mobile version

Don't confuse mobile-first indexing and mobile usability

Check the mobile version of your website ( https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly )

Remember that page speed is extremely important

Remember that you need to provide the same UX in desktop and mobile versions

If your site is well designed, you are ready!

And if you want more details, feel free to follow the webinar I held on this topic:

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