After years of development, Google has officially announced its transition to mobile-first indexing, as announced by the tech giant on Tuesday. This significant change signifies that Google now precedes mobile versions when crawling and indexing the content of web pages.
This shift highlights Google’s increasing focus on mobile devices, a trend that began as far back as 2015. At that point, Google rolled out modifications to its search algorithm, showing a preference for optimized websites for mobile viewing.
In the subsequent year, Google initiated the mobile-first indexing process by prioritizing the crawling of mobile pages over their desktop counterparts.
Google marked this achievement with a heartfelt announcement:
As the years have passed, mobile web traffic has continuously surged, with certain regions witnessing nearly exclusive use of smartphones for internet access. We extend our gratitude to all site owners, SEO experts, web developers, designers, and everyone involved in the world of websites for their invaluable contributions to making the mobile web a resounding success!
Crawling on Mobile Enhances the User Experience
In a world where mobile usage has surpassed desktops for global internet access, prioritizing the crawling of mobile versions. It offers the most precise representation of what users encounter when searching on their smartphones.
Websites have progressively evolved, ensuring that their mobile pages are just as feature-rich as their desktop counterparts.
Google to Address the Remaining Sites Designed Exclusively for Desktop
Google has acknowledged that a few websites continue to face issues with mobile functionality. To accommodate these sites, Google intends to persist with the crawling of their desktop versions, at least for the time being.
Furthermore, the company plans to decrease the frequency of crawling desktop pages to save valuable resources.
Search Console Updates for Mobile-First Indexing
In a connected development, Google discontinues indexing crawler data from the webmaster tool and search console. With the transition now finalized, this data is now deemed optional as all operational websites are crawled through mobile.
The prolonged journey toward mobile-first indexing signifies the growing prominence of mobile devices in global internet usage.
With the implementation phase now complete, Google has made mobile the primary medium for users to connect to the web.
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