Google Will No Longer Index Sites That Do Not Work on Mobile Devices

Although Google’s Mobile First Indexing Update was completed in November 2023, this step seems to be the final step taken by Google to move toward a Mobile-First indexing. This Monday, Google warned websites that are not mobile-friendly and announced that it will no longer index and rank such sites. This will be implemented from July 5, 2024. Google has still been rolling a small set of sites using desktop Googlebot, but this will only continue until July 5. After that, all the sites will be crawled using mobile Googlebot. Although a major part of websites is already being crawled like that, Google now plans to crawl and index all sites using Googlebot smartphone. This prioritization of mobile sites seems to be another significant effort by the company to ensure the best user experience. 

This is not very shocking as all us of already saw it coming with the Mbile first indexing update that rolled for around seven years. It is not going to be a major issue for most of the website owners as most of the sites are designed to be accessed on mobile devices today. However, if for some reason your website doesn’t work on mobile phones, it will no longer be indexable. 

One important thing to keep in mind here is that your site will not be indexed only if it does not render or load on mobile devices. Google has not said that sites that are not mobile-friendly will not be indexed. If your site is desktop-friendly, but the desktop version successfully loans on mobile devices, there is no issue. It’s just that the site should open and be accessible on mobiles.

This can majorly impact desktop-only sites and their SEO. Therefore, website owners now need to pay special attention to making their sites accessible with mobile phones. This can also affect SEO professionals and agencies that are working for sites that do not work on mobile devices. The best solution is to make them accessible with mobile devices as soon as possible as you still have around one month to do it. 

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