Story Based Question
A local gym decided to revamp its website to cater better to mobile users, ensuring that its pages loaded faster and the design was fully responsive. After the redesign, the marketing manager noticed that while the desktop version of the website was ranking well in search results, the mobile version wasn’t getting as much visibility. The manager asked the SEO specialist, “Why are we seeing such a difference in rankings between the mobile and desktop versions of our site? Is something different about how Google crawls mobile sites?” The SEO specialist answered, “Yes, mobile crawlability is different from desktop crawlability, and understanding this difference can help us optimize your site better for mobile SEO.”
Exact Answer
Mobile crawlability differs from desktop crawlability because search engines prioritize crawling the mobile version of a website for ranking purposes. With mobile-first indexing, Google primarily uses the mobile version of your site for crawling and indexing, which means that if your mobile site has issues like broken links or slow loading times, it can impact mobile rankings and visibility.
Explanation
Mobile crawlability and desktop crawlability both refer to how search engines access and index a website’s pages, but with mobile-first indexing becoming the standard, there are key differences in how search engines approach these two versions of a site:
- Mobile-First Indexing: Google now uses mobile-first indexing, meaning it crawls and indexes the mobile version of your website first. This has shifted the focus away from the desktop version of your site. In the past, Google used to crawl the desktop site for ranking purposes, but now the mobile version is the primary source for indexing. If your mobile site has issues like slow load times, broken links, or missing content, this will directly affect your rankings on mobile search results.
- Mobile Site Performance: Mobile search rankings are now heavily influenced by how well the mobile version of your site performs. If Googlebot has trouble crawling your mobile pages due to elements like slow loading times, pop-ups, or poor navigation, it could hurt your mobile SEO. Mobile crawlability involves ensuring that content is accessible, readable, and quick to load, all factors that directly impact your rankings. For example, if your mobile site takes longer than 3 seconds to load, Google may not index the content properly, impacting both user experience and search rankings.
- Responsive vs. Separate Mobile Sites: With mobile-first indexing, Google prefers responsive websites, where the same content and structure are provided for both desktop and mobile users. However, if you have a separate mobile version (like a m.example.com subdomain), Google needs to crawl and index both versions, which can complicate things. In this case, any inconsistencies between the desktop and mobile versions of your site can negatively affect mobile crawlability and SEO. Keeping content consistent between the two versions helps search engines crawl and index your pages properly.
- Mobile-Specific Issues: There are specific issues that can affect mobile crawlability, such as:
- Missing or incorrect mobile redirects: If your desktop site redirects to a mobile version but the mobile redirects aren’t set up correctly, Google may not be able to crawl the mobile version properly.
- Non-Responsive Design: If your site is not mobile-friendly and doesn’t adjust to different screen sizes, Google may have difficulty indexing and ranking your content.
- JavaScript and CSS: Sometimes, content hidden behind JavaScript or CSS elements may not be accessible to mobile crawlers, potentially leaving some content unindexed. Ensuring that essential content is not hidden or blocked from crawlers can help with mobile crawlability.
- Desktop Crawlability: While mobile-first indexing has shifted the focus to mobile sites, desktop crawlability is still important for sites with a separate mobile version. Googlebot crawls the desktop version to check for other aspects, like backlinks, which still play a role in overall SEO. However, with mobile-first indexing, the mobile version is the primary focus, so if there’s any discrepancy between the mobile and desktop content, the mobile version’s crawlability will have a bigger impact.
Example
The local gym’s website had both a mobile-optimized and desktop version. They noticed that the mobile version was loading slowly, and some images were broken, while the desktop version worked fine. After investigating, the SEO team found that Googlebot had difficulty crawling certain mobile-specific pages due to slow speeds and missing images, which hurt their rankings for mobile searches.
To resolve this, the gym optimized the mobile version by improving page load times, fixing broken image links, and ensuring that all content visible on the desktop version was also accessible on mobile. After these fixes, they rechecked the mobile crawlability using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test and found that the mobile version was fully indexed and accessible. Within a few weeks, the gym’s mobile rankings improved significantly, as Google now prioritized their mobile site for indexing.
Mobile crawlability is crucial for SEO today, especially with mobile-first indexing. To ensure better mobile rankings, your mobile site must be fast, accessible, and consistent with the desktop version. Pay attention to mobile-specific issues like slow loading times, broken links, and redirects to improve your site’s mobile crawlability and overall mobile SEO.