Google’s use of the mobile version of a page as the primary basis for indexing. Review the concept, business applications and implementation considerations.
Google began its phased mobile-first indexing transition in 2018. Smartphone Googlebot content became the basis for indexing rather than a separate desktop view. Responsive websites generally serve equivalent content, but separate mobile subdomains can omit text or Structured Data present on desktop. When maintaining two versions, mirror important content, metadata, images and JSON-LD on the mobile page to avoid losing information in the indexed version.
Some websites are seeing sharp increases in site: operator queries in Search Console performance reports. Explore possible causes, measurement effects and diagnostic responses.
