Five years later: Websites are still migrating to Google’s Mobile First indexing

Google started its own a mobile-first indexing initiative over 5 years and 8 months ago in November 2016. But we still have sites to migrate from Google desktop indexing to mobile indexing in 2022.

Yes, last November, Google removed any deadline they considered it mandatory to switch indexing in mobile devices. Let’s remind you, in May 201 we reported that mobile first indexing failover was not performed In March, we reported that Google would be moving to the latest series of sites to mobile first indexing soon. This was after the mobile indexing deadline was pushed back September 2020 to March 2021. Well, Google still hasn’t finished transitioning some sites to mobile-first indexing, even though we’re well into the second half of 2022.

Valentin Pletzer received a notification for a website he checked in Google Search Console that it had just been moved to the first mobile index. He shared this on Twitter:

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

— Valentin Pletzer (@VorticonCmdr) August 3, 2022

Glenn Gabe added “The transition to mobile-first indexing continues… Note that I still have a few clients using desktop indexing, so hopefully they will be moved soon. Also note that this does not affect ranking, but it would be good to enter these sites in 2022 in terms of indexing.”

I wonder what percentage of sites in Google’s index have switched to mobile-first indexing. In March 2020, Google told Fr 70% of sites have been moved but we have not notified this number for a long time.

Forum discussion at Twitter.