Mobile-first indexing
Google's policy of using the mobile version of a page as the primary version for indexing and ranking, with desktop as fallback.
In long form.
Since 2020 (and fully completed in 2023), Google indexes the mobile version of every site by default. If your mobile site has less content, fewer features, or hides content behind tap-to-expand, that's the version Google ranks. Common failure modes: mobile menus that hide all main navigation, content trimmed to 'simplify mobile,' lazy-loaded content that mobile rendering doesn't trigger, and structured data that exists only on desktop. Modern responsive design avoids most of these naturally.
When auditing a legacy site, we open Chrome DevTools mobile emulation as the default view. If desktop has features mobile lacks, those features effectively don't exist for SEO.
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