March 2018. An article titled “
We’re launching mobile-first indexing
” was published on Google’s official blog for webmasters.
“Mobile First Indexing (MFI)” literally means “prioritize and index indexing of smartphone sites.”Instead of indexing PC version web pages as the main page, it now
indexes smartphone version web pages
as the main page. This is a very big change in the specifications as
it will now be indexed as a page
.
This shows Google’s intention to provide mobile users with the information they are looking for in a way that is more accurate and easier to view.
Specifically, some sites will be gradually migrated through the following steps.
- Sites that are moving to mobile-first indexing will be notified in Search Console.
- Crawl from Googlebot on smartphone
-
The mobile version of the page appears in Google search results and in Google’s cached pages.
In other words, if you have a PC and mobile version of the page, only the data from the mobile version of the page will be used.
The point to note here is that “some sites will be migrated gradually.”
Therefore, it would be a big mistake to not take any measures and think, “My site didn’t change its ranking at all, so it’s okay.”
In addition, the second half of this article summarizes some key points, but the second half provides hints for measures.
A) Loading content faster is still useful for webmasters looking to improve outcomes for both mobile and desktop users.
B) As always, we use many factors in our rankings. We may show users content that is not mobile-friendly or slow to load if many other signals indicate that it is the most relevant content.
As mentioned in A, one of the criteria for being mobile-first is that pages can “load quickly.”
This eliminates unnecessary JavaScript and CSS, and results in pages with optimized images and HTML.
Also, AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages: a project and work framework jointly developed by Google and Twitter) has been a hot topic recently as a page optimized for mobile, but Google’s official opinion is that AMP and non-AMP are the same content. If the pages are separated,
the “non-AMP” pages will be indexed preferentially
.
However, if you display AMP pages dynamically on mobile (switching based on user agent or screen width), or if all pages are AMP-compatible, then of course the AMP-compatible pages will be indexed.
Currently, only users with a certain degree of literacy can identify AMP-compatible pages, but if the recognition that pages with the AMP mark become “light pages that can be displayed quickly” spreads, the click rate will be higher than higher-ranked pages. You will also enjoy the benefits.
(In the mobile version of Google search results, a lightning icon is displayed on AMP-compatible pages.)
What you really need is if the URLs of the PC and smartphone versions of the page are different.
So what should we do to address mobile-first indexing? You may think this, but in reality, this is the case with responsive design, which is currently mainstream, and if you have already taken basic SEO measures, there is no need to panic.
What you need to be most careful about are sites that are designed in such a way that when you access a site using a smartphone, you are redirected to a smartphone address, which was the mainstream until recently.
Redirection is not the issue here; the URL is different, so the text is different, and the HTML structure is also different, so the mobile version page with a different SEO rating than the PC version page will be recognized as the main page. Masu.
Many of the sites created over five years ago were created without any expectation that mobile-first indexing would be implemented in the future, and in some cases, there are many sites that were created by the production company as a bonus. It can be seen in
In that case, of course, it would just be a “cheap job” without any SEO measures, so you can imagine what a disaster it would be if Google were to rate it as the main page.
Specific measures are needed in the second half of the vote, mainly in cases where the PC and mobile version of the page display differently.
|
The type of site you own… |
|
|
No changes. The mobile version and the PC version are the same. |
|
No changes. The mobile version and the PC version are the same. |
|
No changes. The mobile version and the PC version are the same. |
|
Google gives priority to mobile URLs when indexing them. |
|
Google prefers to index mobile-optimized content. |
|
Google prefers to index non-AMP mobile URLs. |
The second half of the page also describes countermeasures when the pages are divided.
How to use dynamic delivery or separate URLs
- Mobile sites should include the same content as the PC site. If the mobile site has less content than the PC site, make sure the main content is the same as the PC site.
- Structured data is specified in both versions of the site. Ensure that the structured data URL in the mobile version is updated to the mobile URL.
- Metadata must be equivalent for both mobile and desktop versions of the site.
- Regarding the relationship between the mobile version and the PC version of the site, specify the rel=canonical link element and the rel=alternate link element correctly. This will properly notify crawlers etc. that the page has a different URL for each device. Please set it correctly so that it can be done.
Also, in the case of pages that support multilingualization, the rel=hreflang link element is probably set, so in that case, you will also need to specify a different URL page for each device.
summary
Responsive designs created recently do not require any immediate measures, but pages created a while ago often have pages created for each device, and the main issues are the volume of content and pages lacking SEO measures. If it becomes a page, it is expected that the search ranking will drop significantly.
Please check the site structure once again and take appropriate measures.