Why are non-friendly mobile websites being moved to Google's mobile first indexing?
Jamie Clifton
I build & scale go to market operations to drive predictable revenue growth | Managing Director | HubSpot Partner | Revenue Operations | Tech Stack Consultancy | Data | AI | Custom Integrations | Aircall | B2B marketing
The second batch of websites that Google will be rolling out the mobile first indexing to received their notices this week. There's been much confusion surrounding why some of these websites getting their notices are not mobile friendly, others less maintained or much smaller.
Why would Google move these websites to mobile first indexing?
Firstly, being mobile friendly IS NOT a requirement for moving your website to the mobile first indexing process. They are two completely different terms.
Remember, Google has a single index. It doesn't have an index for mobile vs desktop. Those trying to stay with desktop only to avoid mobile first indexing by not being mobile friendly are wasting their time!
The 'friendly' aspect is still a ranking factor in any mobile search results, but it is independent of Google's indexing. Desktop only websites can still be responsive across devices. Showing the same content more or less, regardless of if you have to pinch to zoom.
So in summary, desktop sites not being equivalent to mobile is not a problem. They are still one site and if they have no technical issues, are a great fit for mobile first indexing! Pretty simple when you think about it.