Mobile First Indexing vs Link Graph
Google’s newest trend in the development of how search engines work is mobile-first indexing. This new trend caused a lot of confusion about what it means for web page owners. There are a bunch of questions piling in peoples heads. Are they going to have to change anything? Or everything? Is having a mobile-friendly web site going to be enough?
And the biggest question of them all: What is the relationship between the link graph and mobile-first indexing and how it is going to influence their web page?
This article is going to try to answer those questions.
What is mobile-first indexing?
The mobile-first indexing means that the mobile version of websites becomes the starting point for what Google includes in their index and it is the baseline for how they determine rankings.
MOBILE FIRST INDEXING ISN’T MOBILE ONLY INDEX
Mobile first indexing isn’t the same thing as a mobile-only index. It means that if a site doesn’t have a mobile-friendly version of the desktop site, the site can still be included in the index. But the lack of a mobile-friendly experience could negatively impact on the site ranking and also sites with better mobile experience could potentially receive a rankings boost even for searchers on a desktop version.
What is the link graph?
One of the ways how the search engines process and evaluate the relevance and reputation of pages in their index is by using a link graph.
Link graph includes nodes (pages, documents) connected by directed edges (links).
It also helps in the ranking of the document, while co-citation makes easier to find relationships and categories of documents.
The background of making mobile-first indexing
It is well known that mobiles are changing the world. Because of the fact that in many countries, the number of smartphones surpassed the number of personal computers; having a mobile-friendly website has become a critical part of having an online presence. And having a mobile-friendly web site is a crucial part of future success. Which means, having a mobile-friendly web site enables having better mobile-first indexing.
Steps to creating a mobile-friendly web site
- If your site is made by selecting a template or theme from a third-party (such as WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla) make sure they are mobile-friendly. If it’s not:
· Back up your site
· Update your CMS to the latest version
· If the CMS offers custom themes, make sure the themes are mobile-friendly
· Use the Mobile-Friendly Test to make sure your site is mobile-friendly
2. Hire a web developer if you have to.
3. Choose responsive web design.
The changes
Mobile-first indexing means Google will predominantly use the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking. Since the majority of users now access Google via a mobile device, the index will primarily use the mobile version of a page’s content going forward.
How does this influence different types of sites:
· Desktop only sites ( your site is desktop only and doesn’t have a mobile-friendly version)
— no change, the mobile version is the same as the desktop version
· Responsive web design site (your site adjusts for screen size)
— no change, the mobile version is the same as the desktop version
· Canonical AMP site (all your web pages are created in AMP HTML)
— no change, the mobile version is the same as the desktop version
· Separate URLs site (each desktop URL has an equivalent different URL that serves mobile-optimized content, this site type is also known as an m-dot site)
— Google prefers the mobile URL for indexing
· Dynamic serving site (your site serves different content based on the user’s device, users only see one URL)
— Google prefers the mobile-optimized content for indexing
· AMP and non-AMP site (your site has both AMP and non-AMP versions of a page, users see two different URLs)
— Google prefers the mobile version of the non-AMP URL for indexing if your non-AMP mobile version uses dynamic serving or separate URLs
The connection between mobile-first indexing and link graph
The concern that stands is that mobile website in order to improve user experience on the small screen often remove a lot of the content and links. This shortened content fundamentally alters the link structure which is one of the fundamentals of Google ranking.
Google isn’t aware of how much of the web Google crawls have a desktop and mobile versions. It means that Google will choose to be “mobile first” for those sites that display identical codebases to both mobile and desktop versions.
External links that survived the cull of the mobile version are often placed directly in content. External links are not taken as very important in comparison with in-content links. This may be a signal that Google picks up on. External links that are both on mobile, as well as desktop, are the ones that tend to be the kind that people click on. So, although there may be fewer links that would power the link graph, if your links are good and content-based, then you would have a chance to see improved performance.
What does all of this mean?
Firstly, it means that Google isn’t giving up on the desktop — they’re simply prioritizing the mobile crawl and this makes sense because the majority of search traffic is now mobile. If Google wants to make sure quality mobile content is served, they need to shift their crawl priorities. But they also have a competing desire to find content, and doing so requires using a desktop crawler so long as web owners continue to abbreviate the mobile versions of their sites.
Secondly, there are going to be fewer links powering the link graph (or at least there might be a subset that is specially identified), if your links are good, content-based links, then you have a chance to see improved performance. Because of the cull of the external links.
And lastly, it’s not believed that the link graphs will grow exponentially different as the linked web is only so big. Rather, the paths to which certain pages are reached, and the frequency with which they are reached, will change quite a bit. So, while the link graph will differ, the set of URLs making up the link graph will largely be the same.
