Google announces that the deadline for mobile-first search indexing has been canceled. And up to this time of writing, Google has not set a date when the algorithm will completely shift to mobile-first indexing. The decision to postpone the deadline is to accommodate any remaining websites that have not updated their design to a mobile-friendly version.
Mobile-First Search Index
Google has designed the mobile-first search index for its search algorithm to crawl mobile-friendly web pages. It is also used for ranking purposes as well as for search-related features such as snippets. Google plans to move to a mobile first-index approach to better serve most users accessing Google and their network sites through their mobile devices.
However, one of Google’s problems was that the search results showing on desktop varied differently from those on mobile search. Google’s original plan is to fully adapt website indexing and web page ranking to 100% mobile-friendly indexing. This means that it will not use any content from the desktop versions for ranking and indexing.
Will It Still Happen?
Google’s switch to a complete mobile-first search index was March 2021. However, the day came and went, but no confirmation was made. And till now, the goal has been set aside. Not only that, according to Google, the timeline as well is being left open-ended. This means that Google has no firm plans to switch over their search engines into a mobile-first search indexing.
Google did not share any statistics about how many websites have still not been updated to a mobile-friendly web design. But experts assume that it might be a significant number for Google to delay their plans.
Should You Update Your Website?
Although Google’s plan to move to mobile-search indexing is delayed, this does not mean that it will not happen. And as a top digital marketing company in Los Angeles, we highly recommend our clients and any marketers or online business entrepreneurs to make a switch for a mobile-responsive website.
With more than 290 million mobile users in the U.S. alone, the potential to reach more audiences through their mobile phones has become more crucial than ever before. And with millennials preferring to access the internet on their smartphones, we definitely can predict that the number of mobile users will grow more substantially through the coming years.
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