What Does Google’s Mobile-First Indexing Mean For Business?
What Does Google’s Mobile-First Indexing Mean For Business?
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What Does Google’s Mobile-First Indexing Mean For Business?

Mobile–first indexing means Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking

Google is continuously trying to make the internet a better place. One of the biggest aims of the tech giant is to support growing mobile usage and obsolete computer-first approach.

In doing so, Google has discovered three main problematic issues:

  • User Experience (UX):  Quite a few websites provide a poor mobile experience, which is why Google worked out an update that enhanced rankings for pages that proved to be mobile-friendly in the year 2015.
  • Time factor: We all want websites to be faster. So, Google decided to make “page-speed” as a ranking factor.
  • Balancing: In recent times, we see that the search results in Google are the desktop version of a webpage. However, to make certain about user experience, websites need to adjust to the device.

Google is handling this end problem with determination with a moderate shift towards mobile-first indexing – a methodology which has gone viral in the marketing strategy of businesses.

WHAT IS INDEXING?

The meaning actually goes by its name. It basically means that the mobile version of the website tends to become the point of reference for Google as it includes in its index and the standard for how they decide the rankings.

WHY DOES THIS NEED TO BE MANIPULATED AND HOW COULD THIS BE AFFECTING BUSINESSES?

At present, indexing takes the desktop site into account first. So, if a user searches for a website on his/her mobile, it may happen that he/she is not getting all the information which happens in the case of the desktop interface. To make certain that users are getting all details perfectly of the website Google nowadays ranks mobile pages and indexes according to their content. In general terms, Google conducts a mobile-friendly test and ranks them accordingly.

This could affect your business at a certain level because if your mobile and website content is different, then Google can delete your page from the index. Hence, certain high-end businesses could face a major issue because their content is generally huge.

WHAT ARE THE RISKS INVOLVING THIS?

If one needs to maintain their mobile and desktop content simultaneously, then a certain methodology has to be followed.

  • Dissimilarity of content (in terms of implementing it in different devices) is not permissible and needs to be checked.
  • The mobile page should distinctly refer to the non-indexable page (desktop) to avoid replications.
  • Make sure the internal links are the same to avoid creating left-out pages.
  • If you are thinking about creating Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) then, make sure that the relationship between these and the mobile pages are described to the search engines.
CONCLUSION

Gradually, the added functionalities of running mobile and desktop pages will definitely make any business to change their pages (i.e. redesign) accordingly. One may take the help of digital marketing service providers like Nummero – who will help you to get the maximum traffic using SEO, branding as well as in terms of designing your websites. It is next to impossible to judge and comment on how the web ecosystem will react to this mobile-first index methodology, but it is crucial that business adapt accordingly to stay in the game.

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