Google is rolling out mobile-first indexing, and websites are going to be affected. However, there’s no need to panic. In this talk Rachel explains exactly how mobile-first indexing will actually impact work, and what SEOs can do to not only help their websites survive the new indexing system, but thrive. We’ll cover areas for potential site performance decreases to watch out for, the key checks you need to run on your site, and more.

1. HOW TO SURVIVE & THRIVE
AFTER MOBILE-FIRST
INDEXING
Search Birmingham
Rachel Costello, Technical SEO
@DeepCrawl SearchBHM

2. WHAT WE’LL COVER
@rachellcostello SearchBHM

3. WHAT WE’LL COVER
Here’s what we’ll be discussing:
What exactly is mobile-first indexing?
How will site performance be impacted?
What are the important checks for
mobile-first readiness?
@rachellcostello SearchBHM

5. WHAT IS MOBILE-FIRST
INDEXING?
@rachellcostello SearchBHM

6. “Our algorithms will eventually primarily
use the mobile version of a site’s
content to rank pages from that site, to
understand structured data, and to show
snippets from those pages in our results.”
THE MOBILE-FIRST INDEX AT WORK
@rachellcostello SearchBHM
-Google

7. Google will NOT have a separate mobile
index, it is the same single index.
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8. Mobile-first indexing can be explained with
an analogy...
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9. @rachellcostello SearchBHM

10. Desktop pages will be phased out where
there is a mobile alternative.
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11. IMPACT ON WEBSITE
PERFORMANCE
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12. EFFECTS ON SITE PERFORMANCE
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Will keyword rankings be affected?
Yes, if your mobile content is reduced
and doesn’t contain terms the page was
previously ranking for on desktop.

13. IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN RANKINGS
@rachellcostello SearchBHM
The following need to be consistent across desktop
and mobile:
Content
Metadata
Markup
Hreflang
Images
Alt attributes
Indexing rules
Canonical tags

14. These elements must also be crawlable and
indexable.
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15. Does internal linking need to be equivalent?
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16. No, but internal linking on mobile needs to
be accessible for users and search engines.
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17. @rachellcostello SearchBHM

18. INTERNAL LINKING ON MOBILE
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Be mindful of orphaned pages, or
increased levels in site depth
which could be keeping search
engines away from your content.

19. Structured data will play a vital part in the
mobile-first world, and beyond.
@rachellcostello SearchBHM

20. STRUCTURED DATA ON MOBILE
@rachellcostello SearchBHM
“The biggest challenge for mobile-first will be understanding
the lightweight needs of the user and applying this via
condensed content. Structured data and markup allows for
disambiguation when content is not so prevalent on a page in
an unstructured form.”
Dawn Anderson
MD, Move It Marketing

21. Be cautious of stripping back too far for the
mobile experience.
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22. IMPORTANT CHECKS
FOR MOBILE-FIRST
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23. FOR RESPONSIVE SITES
Make sure important resources
aren’t being blocked e.g. images, JS
& CSS.
Check for legacy issues such as
existing dynamic or separate mobile
pages - these will be indexed
instead!
@rachellcostello SearchBHM

24. FOR DYNAMIC SITES
@rachellcostello SearchBHM
Check that the vary: user agent
HTTP header is in use.
Make sure the right user agent is
being served the correct version of
a page, whether that’s mobile or
desktop.

25. FOR SEPARATE MOBILE SITES
Guide the mobile and desktop
user agents to the correct page
version with 301 redirects.
Make sure your servers have
capacity to handle increased
crawl rate from Googlebot
Smartphone.
@rachellcostello SearchBHM

26. FOR ALL SITES
Test robots.txt files to make sure Googlebot
Smartphone can access your mobile setup.
Check your mobile configuration for any display
or UX issues.
Test mobile-first readiness by using SEO tools
that support mobile crawling.
@rachellcostello SearchBHM

27. @rachellcostello SearchBHM
Source: https://www.deepcrawl.com/blog/news/google-webmaster-hangout-notes-june-27th-2017/

28. @rachellcostello SearchBHM

29. TO LEARN MORE
Read our comprehensive
mobile-first white paper:
http://deepcrawl.actonservice
.com/acton/media/31628/mo
bile-first-indexing-whitepaper
@rachellcostello SearchBHM

30. TO LEARN MORE
Sign up to our upcoming mobile-first webinar:
bit.ly/deepcrawl-mobile-first-webinar
@rachellcostello SearchBHM

31. KEY POINTS
Thorough testing is crucial to be sure your mobile
configuration is set up correctly.
Run dedicated crawls of separate mobile sites. Use
a mobile user agent on responsive/dynamic sites.
Make sure everything you want to rank for is
included on mobile.
@rachellcostello SearchBHM

32. Desktop-first optimisation and desktop-first
focus are things the past.
@rachellcostello SearchBHM

33. Mobile should be your number 1 priority.
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34. THANK YOU!
Any questions? Send me a tweet:
Rachel Costello
Technical SEO, DeepCrawl
@rachellcostello SearchBHM
deepcrawl.com @DeepCrawl