Web... The Web ALWAYS Changes
Google has put their foot down! They are changing the way websites will be indexed for the future. Starting July 5, 2024, Google will finally finish their Mobile-First initiative which began back in 2016. Directly from Google’s blog, John Mueller had this to say:
“The small set of sites we’ve still been crawling with desktop Googlebot will be crawled with mobile Googlebot after July 5, 2024,”
“The largest part of the web is already being crawled like this, and there is no change in crawling for these sites.” However, “after July 5, 2024, we’ll crawl and index these sites with only Googlebot Smartphone.”
Mueller stated, “If your site’s content is not accessible at all with a mobile device, it will no longer be indexable”. Indexable here means that your website will not show up in Google’s search results if it fails to render on a phone. If your website will not load at all on your cell phone, then your website will be invisible to Google search.
It has been said that Google will continue to use its desktop web crawler for product listings and jobs, that is the extent of its use. The Googlebot Smartphone will carry on the remaining task of crawling all websites and deeming them worthy of indexation.
What does this mean for you?
For a large portion of you, this will not be an issue since mobile optimization for your website should already be in effect. Since 2015, using your mobile phone to search online has been the leader in search platforms. With almost the entire population of the world having a smartphone in their pocket, it is almost criminal to think that you shouldn’t optimize your website for them.
How can you fix this?
Call us! We pride ourselves on modern, well-built, mobile-optimized, mobile-friendly websites. Our method is to build or revamp your website with mobile in mind first, this means we build it as if desktops do not exist, once this version of your website is complete, we then back track to make it friendly and optimized for use on a laptop, tablet, or desktop.
