Google’s Mobile Index Update: How Will It Affect You?

What You Need to Know About Google’s Mobile Index Update

Is your site mobile friendly? A few months ago, Google announced that they would split their search indexes to show different results for desktop and mobile devices. Up until now, Google indexed pages through the desktop version of a site. This caused issues with search presence for mobile pages. Now, Google will make two separate indexes, with the mobile index serving as the primary index for evaluating
your web site’s pages.

We’ve outlined more information of what Google’s Mobile Index is, and some steps you might need to take in the next couple of months.

What Ranking Factors Will Google Consider With This Update?

What Ranking Factors Will Google Consider With This Update?

To summarize this into one sentence, Google will be looking for your site’s responsiveness based on what someone would search for on a mobile device. According to VentureBeat, Google considers a site mobile-friendly after meeting the following qualifications:

  • The site avoids using software that won’t respond on mobile devices, like Flash.
  • Text is readable without zooming.
  • Content sizes to the screen’s size, not requiring users to scroll or zoom.
  • Links are placed far enough from each other so the correct one can be tapped.

To check if your site meets these qualifications, you can use Google’s mobile-friendly test. This will tell you whether your site meets their requirements, and if not, what you can do about it.

How Will My 7cart Site be Affected By Google’s Mobile Index?

How Will My 7cart Site be Affected By Google’s Mobile Index?

All 7cart sites are responsive and mobile friendly, meaning that this update shouldn’t affect your search presence too much. Regardless, this is a good time to revisit any pages that you haven’t touched in a while and see how they work on a mobile device.

What Changes Will Webmasters Need to Make?

What Changes Will Webmasters Need to Make?

Fortunately, there isn’t much that needs to be done if you have a mobile-friendly site already. Webmasters who currently have a mobile friendly site will want to make sure that the mobile version of their site, if applicable, has similar usability and content to their current desktop site. Canonical tags can be left as is.

Where Can I Find the Latest Guidelines?

Where Can I Find the Latest Guidelines?

Google’s developers section contains any piece of information you need about how a site is considered responsive, and the steps you might need to take to make your site mobile friendly. There are basically three key points to being a mobile-friendly site: letting Google know that your site is mobile-friendly, ensuring your pages are crawlable, and ensuring that all videos and content can be viewed on a mobile device. You can also find the latest updates regarding the mobile index on Google’s Webmaster Central Blog.

When is the Switchover Expected to Take Place?

When is the Switchover Expected to Take Place?

As of this writing, Google has already begun experimenting with it’s plan shift to focus primarily on mobile content. This has been known for quite some time, but was originally announced in November 2016. Google hopes to roll this out at some point in 2017.

Are you looking to make the jump to a mobile friendly website?

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