Google has started rolling out the mobile first index. They’ve already moved a limited number of sites to mobile first indexing actually, but this time it’s on a much larger scale. Apart from sending messages on the search console, they are sending emails to the site owners informing them about the shift.
Here’s how the email looks:
Subject: Mobile-first indexing enabled for “your domain name”
To the owner of “your domain name” ,
This means that you may see more traffic in your logs from Googlebot Smartphone. You may also see that snippets in Google Search results are now generated from the mobile version of your content.
Background: Mobile-first indexing means that Googlebot will now use the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking, to better help our (primarily mobile) users find what they’re looking for. Google’s crawling, indexing, and ranking systems have historically used the desktop version of your site’s content, which can cause issues for mobile searchers when the desktop version differs from the mobile version. Our analysis indicates that the mobile and desktop versions of your site are comparable.
The real take away: you’ll be able to quickly know if your site has been moved or not. No more checking logs or guesswork.
As always, if you have questions- let Smart 1 Marketing know or send me a message here on LinkedIn.