As we reach the year 2024, the digital space has fully undergone development. To put this into perspective, Google’s mobile-first indexing, which embarked on a close-to-seven-year journey in November 2016, had indexed half of all sites included in its search results through mobile-first indexing by the middle of December 2018. In simple terms but profound in meaning and implications, this means Google now mainly crawls and indexes the mobile version of websites.
In accordance with this fact, Google has also changed something in its Search Console and is phasing out the desktop version indexing crawler information. That means that the complete shift to mobile-first indexing took place, and the analysis of desktop-only sites is no longer relevant.
Why is this important to know?
This transition, announced at the beginning of March 2020, was set with a deadline of September 2020 but was later extended to March 2021. This transition underlines one more critical reality: how important it is for your business that your website be optimized for mobile. Living in a world where the majority of internet users attain information through smartphones, a subpar mobile experience can notably hamper a brand’s online visibility and user engagement.
In other words, companies that have not audited and/or updated their website in the last three years are in jeopardy of falling behind. A website experience-if looked at through a lens of new mobile-first indexing criteria-is not just about relevance but an opportunity to seize a competitive advantage. It is about ensuring your brand’s online presence is optimized for the majority of your audience that more than likely will view your content on a mobile device.
The completion of Google’s mobile-first indexing officially welcomes a new era in digital marketing and SEO. Performing an audit of the website’s mobile experience is not an option but a given for any brand willing to thrive in 2024 and beyond. This audit won’t just let you see how your website stacks up against Google’s indexing standards, but it will also let you know what you could do to make the brand’s website experience better and help it stay competitive in this digital-first world.