Sites Still Being Migrated To Google’s Mobile First Indexing

Google started its mobile-first indexing initiative over 5 years and 8 months ago, in November 2016. But we still have sites that are being migrated over from Google desktop-first indexing to mobile-first indexing in 2022.

Yes, last November, Google removed any deadline they had for the mandatory mobile-first indexing switch over. As a reminder in May 201 we reported that mobile first indexing switch was not done yet and then in March we reported that Google was going to migrate over the last batch of sites to mobile first indexing soon. This was after moving the mobile-first indexing deadline from September 2020 to March 2021. Well, Google is still not done moving some sites to mobile-first indexing, even as we pass the second half of 2022.

Valentin Pletzer received a notice for a site he has verified in Google Search Console that it was just moved to mobile-first indexed. He shared this on Twitter:

Is there a new wave of mobile first switches? #google #mobile #crawler pic.twitter.com/IrzmgJyOJR

— Valentin Pletzer (@VorticonCmdr) August 3, 2022

Glenn Gabe added “The switch to mobile-first indexing continues… Note, I still have some clients on desktop-based indexing so hopefully, they get moved soon. Also note, it doesn’t impact rankings, but would be good for those sites to enter 2022 indexing-wise.”

I do wonder what percentage of sites in Google’s index are moved over to mobile-first indexing. In March 2020, Google said about 70% of sites have been moved but we have not had an update on that figure in a long time.

Forum discussion at Twitter.