Before we start talking about why Google Will Not Set a Date For Mobile-First Index, I think all of you have a question revolving in your mind. Let me guess what the question is. What is meant by Mobile-First Index?
The Mobile-First Index is an index of web pages that are mobile-friendly. And can also be used for ranking and features related to search, like the snippets. What is the reason for shifting to such a method? The main reason was to serve the majority of the Google search users, who used their mobile phones to access Google much better!
See also: Valuable Tips For Sites Getting Indexed By John Mueller
What was the problem faced by Google? The main problem was showing the different search results from the websites whose fairly induced desktop version varied significantly from the mobile version delivered to the searchers on mobile. The Mobile-First index method was applied to solve this problem.
Did Google set any date for the switchover to a mobile-first index? Google has canceled the last date for the switchover to a Mobile-first index, and presently there is no final date.
Google did this to accommodate some of the remaining websites which have not yet updated themselves to the recent mobile-friendly version.
What was the basic idea? The idea was to move web page ranking and website indexing entirely to 100% Mobile-friendly documents. The concept also included the non-usage of the different contents from desktop versions for indexing or ranking.
But for now, the goal that Google had, has been set aside, and the timeline is left open.
Contents
Mobile-first Switch Over Date Canceled by Google
According to John Meuller, many sites were still not ready to be shifted and faced many challenges. The move was thought to be completed within a given time, but the complex challenges faced by some sites remained. He also said that there is no specific date for the switchover, but Google can take some more significant and thoughtful steps in the future.
Has Google Site Indexing Changed?
Is the heading above valid? Google’s indexing news has been streaming recently on the internet and is an essential topic of concern on social media. This discussion has the primary perception that Google’s indexing has changed.
The community of search marketing has been highly concerned about the topic of search indexing for the past month because, for many, it has become increasingly tricky to index content by Google. Do we have some other proof? Marketers from around the world are sharing such details by which we can infer that Google is indexing observably fewer contents.
Are you aware of the new protocol called IndexNow? The new crawling protocol was announced by BING that has made a promise to change the way of discovery and indexing of the web pages. Google also announced that they would be thoroughly studying the benefits of this protocol.
See also: It’s Normal For 20% Of A Website To Not Be Indexed Says John Mueller
Postponement of the Mobile-First Search Index
Presently, Google has no plans of switching over to a fully Mobile-First search index. Although Google did not share the statistics about how many sites face problems in switching over, it must be a significant number to resist the switchover.
Conclusion
After reading the entire content, it can be well understood that some websites are still not ready for a switchover. Taking a note of all these sites, Google has stopped the switchover as of now. It is also working on a new crawling and indexing protocol that has been announced by bing.