Google extends the deadline for mobile first index

It is very likely you have heard of Google's famous Mobile First Index. You may even receive an email informing you that your websites have already been updated, because the process is very advanced. 

But in recent days, Google has made an interesting announcement. 100% of the Mobile First Index has been scheduled for September 2020, meaning that the total pages would become indexed based on the mobile bot. 

Seeing that many pages are not optimized yet and considering how coronavirus is affecting eCommerce and web design in general, Google has extended that period until March 2021. This is what they have announced through their official blog. 

If you have created your store with Oleoshop, you can stop reading and take a look at any of our other posts on SEO, since our software has been fully adapted for a long time. 

In the case of having used another CMS or having designed it from scratch, you should know some necessary good practices. Find below a short Mobile First Index checklist of things to do to avoid unpleasant surprises. 

Of course, this is the key to everything. After all, this change that is taking place means that Google will use its mobile robot to crawl and index pages. 

Due to this, you should pay attention to the use of certain elements, such as meta tags. They must always be the same in both desktop and mobile versions, or this inconsistency could prevent correct indexing. 

Let´s explain this concept in case you do not know. It is the lazy loading of images, videos and other resources so that they are loaded as user demands. 

This is a good measure from the point of view of usability and user experience, since the page has a better loading speed, but it can have certain consequences from the SEO point of view. 

It is quite common to find pages that have different content on mobile and desktop. This is done in order to save resources, speeding up pages, and delivering a device-friendly experience.

This is absolutely not a bad practice. What Google does recommend is that we take special care not to leave critical content outside the mobile version or, even being inside, it is not labeled in the same way. 

Multimedia content is great. Users love it and it allows us to make much more attractive online stores . 

We have already commented more than once that we must optimize our images so that they continue to have a good quality but keep the weight under control and do not slow down the page load. But be careful and do not go too far. 

These are some tips that you can still apply now that Google extends the deadline for Mobile First Index. But, if you are very interested in this subject, I recommend that you take a look at the optimization guide and good practices for mobile-focused indexing that Google itself has at your disposal among its resources for developers. 

Well, actually what I recommend is that you set up your next store using Oleoshop and let this platform developers worry about these types of issues while you dedicate yourself to selling, which is what are good at.