SEARCHENGINES
Google Does Another Bulk Mobile First Indexing Batch On May 22, 2023
I am hearing reports from SEOs that Google did another batch switchover from desktop-first indexing to mobile-first indexing for many sites. As you know, Google started the mobile-first indexing over six years ago but told us earlier this month that the process might be done in the coming months.
Update: John Mueller of Google has later confirmed this is indeed the last batch. He added to my story on Mastodon, “Last batch! Tiny handful of sites that really don’t work on mobile are left, they’ll just be crawled with desktop Googlebot going forward.”
I am told there are still some sites still on desktop-first indexing but we did have a massive push today of sites being moved from desktop-first indexing to mobile-first indexing today, May 22nd/May 21st. John later confirmed Google is done, this was the last batch.
Here is what the notification looks like in Google Search Console, if you want to login to see if your desktop-first indexing site was moved today:
Kenichi Suzuki noticed a batch being moved this morning and posted it on Twitter:
僕のSCでも最後まで残っていた MFI 未移行サイトが 5/22 付で「スマートフォン用 Googlebot」に切り替わってた👏
ようやく全サイトの移行を完了させたのかな?🔚 https://t.co/dq88xnXU8g pic.twitter.com/fg11srmshL— Kenichi Suzuki🇺🇦鈴木謙一 (@suzukik) May 22, 2023
Richard Hearne also noticed this and posted about it on Twitter this morning:
Looks like Google is moving the lingering Desktop-index websites over to Mobile First Indexing. This site has >10M pages, and *was* using a very atypical technique to vary traffic based on UA back when MFI was introed. Today it finally got migrated to MFI: pic.twitter.com/ht8tS4QRGY
— Richard Hearne (@RedCardinal) May 22, 2023
Pedro Dias as well noticed:
Is anyone else noticing a Google rolling a big push to MFI?
— Pedro Dias (@pedrodias) May 22, 2023
Pedro said some of the largest sites were moved over today.
Glenn Gabe also noticed this but with the May 21st date (different time zone?):
For example, the first screenshot is a site that just got moved on 5/21 to m-first indexing (finally). They have been waiting a very long time. But the second screenshot is a site STILL on desktop-first indexing. So Google isn’t done yet. Hard to believe, but true. 🙂 pic.twitter.com/kcbaIRUYP0
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 22, 2023
In November 2022, John said the last batch of mobile-indexing is coming soon. Before that, he said that the last batch would be in July 2022 but then in August said they were not done. As a reminder, Google started its mobile-first indexing initiative over six years ago, in November 2016. But we still have sites that are being migrated over from Google desktop-first indexing to mobile-first indexing at the end of 2022.
Yes, last November, Google removed any deadline they had for the mandatory mobile-first indexing switchover. As a reminder, in May 2021, 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.
As I said above, earlier this month, John Mueller of Google said that the process might be done in the coming months. And this is the end of these batches.
John Mueller added that the reason those last sites will never move over is because they just don’t access Google’s mobile user agent. He wrote, “The problem-sites are those that don’t work with mobile user-agents at all, where it’s basically a decision about whether we can index anything or not. A desktop-formatted site (that can be seen on mobile) is not problematic for indexing.”
The problem-sites are those that don’t work with mobile user-agents at all, where it’s basically a decision about whether we can index anything or not. A desktop-formatted site (that can be seen on mobile) is not problematic for indexing.
— John Mueller (official) — #StaplerLife · #Is (@JohnMu) May 22, 2023
Forum discussion at Twitter.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Won’t Change The 301 Signals For Ranking & SEO
Gary Illyes from Google said on stage at the SERP conference last week that there is no way that Google would change how the 301 redirect signal works for SEO or search rankings. Gary added that it’s a very reliable signal.
Nikola Minkov quoted Gary Illyes as saying, “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal,” when asked if a 301 redirect not working is a myth. Honestly, I am not sure the context of this question, as it is not clear from the post on X, but here it is:
More from @methode:
– 301 redirect not working is a myth. “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal”.#SERPConf2024#SERPConf2024International— Nikola Minkov (@n_minkov) April 19, 2024
We’ve covered 301 redirects here countless times – but I never saw a myth that Google does not use 301 redirects as a signal for canonicalization or for passing signals from an old URL to the redirected URL.
Forum discussion at X.
Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Again Says Ignore Link Spam Especially To 404 Pages
I am not sure how many times Google has said that you do not need to disavow spammy links, that you can ignore link spam attacks and that links pointing to pages that 404/410 are links that do not count – but John Mueller from Google said it again.
In a thread on X, John Mueller from Google wrote, “if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped.” “They do nothing,” he added, “If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link.”
John then added, “I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.”
Asking if it would hurt to disavow, after responding with the messages above, John wrote:
It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).
Earlier this year we had tons of SEOs notice spammy links to 404 error pages, John said ignore them. In 2021, Google said links to 404 pages do not count, Google also said that in 2012 and many other times.
Plus, outside of links to 404 pages, Google has said to ignore spammy links, time and time again – even the toxic links – ignore them. The messaging around this changed in 2016 when Penguin 4.0 was released and Google began devaluing links over demoting them.
Here are those new posts in context:
I’d say add both. Lol
— Jeremy Rivera (@JeremyRiveraSEO) April 11, 2024
Sure. But also, save yourself the work completely :-).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024
Re-reading your initial post – if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped. They do nothing. If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link. I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024
… but still… is this a dumb idea?
— Rebekah Edwards (@rebekah_creates) April 11, 2024
It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024
And in general, Google says it ignores spammy links, so you should too (not new) but this post from John Mueller is:
I would just ignore them, Google ignores them too. Sometimes they’re just more visible in tools, but that doesn’t mean they’re a problem.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 18, 2024
And then also on Mastodon wrote about a similar situation, “Google has 2 decades of practice of ignoring spammy links. There’s no need to do anything for those links.”
Forum discussion at X.
Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Needs Very Few Links To Rank Pages; Links Are Less Important
Gary Illyes from Google spoke at the SERP Conf on Friday and he said what he said numerous times before, that Google values links a lot less today than it did in the past. He added that Google Search “needs very few links to rank pages.”
Gary reportedly said, “We need very few links to rank pages… Over the years we’ve made links less important.”
I am quoting Patrick Stox who is quoting what he heard Gary say on stage at the event. Here is Patrick’s post where Gary did a rare reply:
I shouldn’t have said that… I definitely shouldn’t have said that
— Gary 鯨理/경리 Illyes (so official, trust me) (@methode) April 19, 2024
Gary said this a year ago, also in 2022 and other times as well. We previously covered that Google said links would likely become even less important in the future. And even Matt Cutts, the former Googler, said something similar about eight years ago and the truth is, links are weighted a lot less than it was eight years ago and that trend continues. A couple of years ago, Google said links are not the most important Google search ranking factor.
Of course, many SEOs think Google lies about this.
Judith Lewis interviewed Gary Illyes at the SERP Conf this past Friday.
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