Apparently, the rollout will be only for websites that follow best practices for Mobile first indexing.
Before we talk about anything else, first let’s have a look at
what exactly is Mobile First Indexing?
Previously Google used to crawl, index and rank websites based on the desktop version of the website’s pages.
Google which is not in any mood to leave any stones unturned in its process of making the searches as user-friendly as possibly thought; Using Desktop version of pages for indexing, crawling and ranking would cause issues for mobile searchers if there is a major difference between Desktop and Mobile versions of the website.
That is why instead of using Desktop version of a page index, crawl and rank; Google started to use the mobile version of the page to crawl, index and rank and this is what is called Mobile First Indexing.
Also, Check Out: Google To Add Captions in Image Search Results | Title Tags Important
With mobile searches surpassing desktop searches every year, this indeed is a very smart move from Google. Isn’t it?
Google started to experiment with Mobile First Indexing a year and a half ago. Today, On March 26th, Google officially announced on its Webmaster Central blog that it has started rolling out the Mobile First Indexing for more number of sites.
Apparently, the rollout will be only for websites that follow best practices for Mobile first indexing.
Another interesting thing is, this is the first time that Google has announced about moving a large number of sites to mobile first indexing.
Google has also mentioned that the site owner will be seeing a huge increase in crawl rates from the smartphone Googlebot. Along with that, Google will also be showing the mobile version of pages in search results and Google Cached pages.
Google has a detailed document on Mobile First Indexing. if you are interested to check out. Also, if you want more info about this rollout, you can check it out on Google Webmaster Blog here.
