The concept of indexing is nothing new. However, with Google’s recent release of its new search engine algorithm, Mobile-First Indexing (MFI), it is becoming quite prevalent. It is causing a stir among SEOs, marketers, developers, and webmasters.
First, what exactly is Mobile-First Indexing?
Mobile-First Indexing is a method of indexing sites to help Google in its efforts to provide mobile users with a better experience. Google’s John Mueller, head of the search giant’s Webspam team, took to Twitter to explain why this isn’t a new idea: “I think this is a pretty new feature, but it’s not something we’ve talked about much. It’s something we’ve been working on for a while, and we’re excited about the results so far.”
Mobile-First Indexing is Google’s new indexing technology designed to help optimize web pages for mobile devices, particularly mobile-friendly websites. The keyword itself is a bit of a mouthful, but if you break the term down, it boils down to the fact that Google will serve pages based on various signals, including the page’s content and how it is being utilized.
Worldwide, mobile is becoming an increasingly important aspect for many people. This is due to the fact that smartphones and tablets offer a whole new level of interactivity and engagement.
Mobile-first indexing (MFI) or “Mobile first” was introduced by Google in January 2017. This tool is designed to help search engine crawlers categorize websites on mobile devices. The tool is said to improve the speed by which a website is ranked in Google search result pages to provide a more relevant user experience.
On June 13th, Google announced the launch of its new data-driven algorithm, Mobile-First Indexing, or MFI. This means that the mobile version of a website is the primary index, and the desktop version of a website can be used as a secondary index.
What does this mean for SEO?
There are two types of SEOs: Those who focus on link building and those who focus on onsite optimization. Both types of SEO aim for the same thing—to get high-ranking pages on Google and other search engines. However, these two differ in the process of completing this. SEOs who are focused on link building build quality backlinks to the pages they want to rank. Those who focus on onsite optimizations focus on the internal pages of your websites.
Google has quietly rolled out some new changes to its indexing process. “Mobile-First Indexing” means Google is now crawling and indexing webpages based on mobile devices, rather than desktops. This means that mobile users get the first crack at seeing new content on websites in the search engine index. This is a big deal and has a lot of SEO implications.
There are two major players in this process: Apple and Google. Apple uses an indexing process called “local sharing,” which essentially means that if you have a link from your Apple device to a website, that website will be indexed by the iOS app when you open the link. This is because Apple stores digital copies of all the content that goes on their devices. Google uses a different system called “index plus,” which essentially means that once a link is sent to the browser, it is linked to a search engine. The search engine stores a digital copy of the content and then passes some metadata to other search engines. Google is supposed to use this data to help rank search results.
Did you know that Google releases new indexing algorithms and updates its rules every year? The basic idea behind this is to ensure that their search results are up-to-date. Google states that they will not rank mobile-friendly web pages higher in search results. The reason could be the less traffic generation from mobile-friendly sites, and they are less likely to have content that answers searchers’ questions.
For the past few years, Google has been pushing the idea of the mobile version of a website. This year, they announced a new program called Mobile-First Indexing. They will use a mobile-friendly test to determine whether or not a website is mobile-friendly and then move everything from the desktop version to the mobile version.