??Confusing with its Latest Statements, Google Removed the Smoke Screen: Is Desktop SEO Still Necessary?

It all started with the Googlebot announcement by Google last week. Making the following statement last week, Google announced that mobile Googlebots will now crawl sites instead of desktop:

“…the small set of sites we’ve still been crawling with desktop Googlebot will be crawled with mobile Googlebot after July 5, 2024. … After July 5, 2024, we’ll crawl and index these sites with only Googlebot Smartphone. If your site’s content is not accessible at all with a mobile device, it will no longer be indexable.”

In the ever-evolving digital marketing landscape, the rise of mobile browsing has led many to question the suitability of desktop SEO. Naturally, many people wondered whether desktop Googlebots would disappear completely. Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst and Search Relations team lead at Google, John Mueller, responded to a question asking whether it would be appropriate to stop optimizing the desktop version of a website as Google moves to indexing only mobile versions.

????Mobile vs Responsive Website

Google’s John Mueller explained the benefits of having a single version of a responsive website. This eliminates the need to maintain two websites and makes it desktop compatible for site visitors who visit a site with a desktop browser. Moreover, Mueller offered reasons why it is a good idea to maintain a functional desktop version of a website; these include site visitors actually found on other search engines, browsers, and desktop devices. Most SEO experts understand that generating revenue with a website depends on being accessible to all site visitors.

His explanation, which completely ended the confusion, was this:

“With mobile indexing, it’s true that Google focuses on the mobile version for web search indexing. However, there are other search engines & crawlers / requestors, and there are other requests that use a desktop user-agent (I mentioned some in the recent blog post, there are also the non-search user-agents on the user-agent documentation page).”

?????Reasons to Maintain Desktop Compatibility

Mueller acknowledges that mobile Googlebots will index the site. Therefore, mobile compatibility is now a serious necessity. However, the sole purpose of websites is not to be crawled and ranked by Google. Desktop search plays a vital role, especially in local SEO. Many users perform local searches on desktop computers to find services, directions, and business information. Ensuring a business is optimized for desktop searches can increase its visibility and accessibility in local markets.

??Take a Deep Breath and Learn What to Do!

Mobile SEO has become undeniably important with the announcement made last week. Now everyone who wants their site to be visible in the search engine has to step into mobile compatibility, let’s agree there! So, apart from this, what should we do?

??Desktop SEO is also still important for local SEO and marketing of businesses, especially SMEs. Therefore, if you have a business, pay attention to desktop SEO as well as mobile compatibility in order to implement a solid marketing strategy for it.

??Google constantly updates and informs its users. Being informed about the latest innovations makes your site much stronger. So do a lot of research and listen to innovations.

??A well-structured and easy-to-navigate site ensures that users can effortlessly find what they need. Strive to keep your site’s navigation intuitive and its structure straightforward.

You can make your site stronger with these tips. By working with a team of experts in the field, you can hit the target right on target, away from trial and error methods. Markethinkers is your greatest assistant in your digital and content marketing journey.