Good News for Google, Google Begins Mobile First Indexing Of sties to improve Mobile Search Results

In late 2016, Google began experimenting with mobile-first indexing of Search results to provide an experience that better reflects how people now use the web. A year later, Google has provided an update on the effort that is now underway for a “handful of sites.”Over a year later, Google notes that it is now “evaluating sites independently on their readiness for mobile-first indexing.” For a “handful of sites,” this switch has already begun and is “closely being monitored by the search team.”

Websites with responsive web design “generally don’t have to do anything,” however Google does have an updated list of tips to ensure sites are ready for mobile-first indexing:

• Make sure the mobile version of the site has the important, high-quality content. This includes text, images (with alt-attributes), and videos – in the usual crawlable and indexable formats.
• Structured data is important for indexing and search features that users love: it should be both on the mobile and desktop version of the site. Ensure URLs within the structured data are updated to the mobile version on the mobile pages.
• Metadata should be present on both versions of the site. It provides hints about the content on a page for indexing and serving. For example, make sure that titles and meta descriptions are equivalent across both versions of all pages on the site.
• No changes are necessary for interlinking with separate mobile URLs (m.-dot sites). For sites using separate mobile URLs, keep the existing link rel=canonical and link rel=alternate elements between these versions.
• Check hreflang links on separate mobile URLs. When using link rel=hreflang elements for internationalization, link between mobile and desktop URLs separately. Your mobile URLs’ hreflang should point to the other language/region versions on other mobile URLs, and similarly link desktop with other desktop URLs using hreflang link elements there.
• Ensure the servers hosting the site have enough capacity to handle potentially increased crawl rate. This doesn’t affect sites that use responsive web design and dynamic serving, only sites where the mobile version is on a separate host, such as m.example.com.