Google Will Not Index Sites Inaccessible With Mobile After July 5

Web admins, take note!

According to a recent post on the Google blog, starting July 5, websites whose content does not load on mobile devices will no longer be indexed and ranked by Google.

This announcement came eight months after what would have been the completion of the switch to mobile-first indexing, an initiative that started in November 2016.

“We’re embarking on our final last step (that’s the plan!) of our migration to a mobile-first index for Google Search: the small set of sites we’ve still been crawling with desktop Googlebot will be crawled with mobile Googlebot after July 5, 2024,”
– John Mueller, senior search analyst at Google

Mueller explained that Google has been crawling and indexing most websites using a Google Smartphone crawler for a few years already and will solely use it going forward to simplify their systems and the process of debugging issues related to device types.

Will Google Still Index Not Mobile-Friendly Websites?

Yes. Google will still crawl websites that do not load properly on mobile devices, as the upcoming change will affect only those websites that do not work at all on smartphones and tablets.

“It’s been always the case that if Googlebot can’t access a site at all (I.e. network or HTTP error), the site couldn’t get indexed in Google Search. This will continue to be the case. The difference after July 5 will be that the site will need to be accessible to the smartphone user agent of Googlebot. Whether the site is mobile friendly or not is irrelevant in this case, though it would be nice if it were mobile friendly.”

– Gary Illyes, an analyst at Google, on LinkedIn

Mueller also shed light on the common misconception that mobile indexing is related to mobile-friendliness, saying that a mobile-unfriendly site will still be crawled without any issues.

“It’s not about mobile-friendliness. Old-school, table-based websites are totally fine. It’s only a problem if the site does things like block all mobile users with “you must use a real computer” pages… It’s also not a ranking thing – it’s about what can or cannot be indexed. Mobile-friendliness doesn’t play a role at all.”

– John Mueller on Reddit

With this shift, web admins can no longer rely on the Googlebot Desktop crawler and must ensure their sites load on mobile devices. However, Googlebot Desktop may still be used for Google for Jobs and product listings after July 5.

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