{"id":130228,"date":"2020-12-22T11:00:36","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T16:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/?p=130228"},"modified":"2025-12-18T09:01:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T14:01:33","slug":"mobile-first-indexing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/mobile-first-indexing\/","title":{"rendered":"Mobile-First Indexing Goes Mobile-Only"},"content":{"rendered":"
Mobile-first indexing refers to Google using the mobile version of a site\u2019s content for indexing and ranking. Google previously used the content from the desktop version of pages and made this change in response to the increasing number of users accessing the internet through mobile devices.<\/div>\n\n\n\n

If your website has separate mobile and desktop URLs, Google will show the mobile URL to mobile users and the desktop URL to desktop users. However, the indexed content used to rank the page for both versions will be taken from the mobile version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this guide, I\u2019ll cover more information about mobile-first indexing, as well as mobile-friendly best practices and troubleshooting tips.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Beginner's
New to technical SEO? Check out our<\/div>
Beginner\u2019s guide to technical SEO<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Mobile-first indexing timeline<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Google announced the shift to mobile-first indexing in 2016<\/a>. All the sites that are going to move over to mobile-first indexing are moved as of May 2023. That\u2019s right, it took over 6 years for it to roll out!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a more detailed timeline:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

April 2015<\/strong> - Google launches the Mobilegeddon update which uses mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor.
November 2016<\/strong> - Mobile-first indexing announced and being tested on some sites.
March 2018<\/strong> - Mobile-first indexing being rolled out.
December 2018 <\/strong>- Over 50% of crawled sites now on mobile-first indexing.
July 2019 <\/strong>- Mobile-first indexing by default for new sites.
March 2020<\/strong> - Over 70% of crawled sites now on Mobile-first indexing. They also announced mobile-first indexing would be used on 100% of sites by September 2020.
July 2020 <\/strong>- Coronavirus delays 100% mobile-first indexing to March 2021.
March 2021 <\/strong>- Tentative launch of 100% mobile-first indexing.
February 2023<\/strong> - There are still some sites moving over to mobile-first indexing and some that will remain on desktop-only indexing for technical reasons.
May 2023<\/strong> - The last sites have moved to mobile-first indexing. A few sites will remain on desktop crawling because they don\u2019t work on mobile.
July 2024<\/strong> - If your site\u2019s content is not accessible at all with a mobile device, it will no longer be indexable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can check if you\u2019ve moved to mobile-first indexing in Google Search Console<\/a>. Just go to \u201cSettings\u201d where they identify the crawler in the \u201cAbout\u201d section and tell you if and when your website switched to mobile indexing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"switched<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The URL inspection tool in Google Search Console will also identify which user-agent is used for crawling. If you click the page indexing section, you should see \u201cCrawled as\u201d and a user agent such as Googlebot<\/a> smartphone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is only one index and you can\u2019t opt out of mobile-first indexing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google does still crawl with the desktop user-agent, so don\u2019t be surprised if you see that. They still need to check on some things like establishing the relationship between the desktop and mobile versions of pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mobile-first indexing best practices<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s run through some of the things you may need to check to have a smooth transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n