# Mobile-friendliness Category: [Technical SEO](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/technical-seo/) › [HTML, mobile & accessibility](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/category/technical-seo/html-mobile-accessibility/) **Mobile-friendliness** describes how easy a website is to read and use on a smartphone. In SEO it should be kept apart from mobile-first indexing, which decides which version of a page Google uses for indexing. ## What has changed at Google? Google rolled out its mobile-friendly ranking update on April 21, 2015. On December 1, 2023 Google removed mentions of the Mobile-Friendly Test and the Mobile Usability report from its documentation. According to the update entry, both tools are going away. Lighthouse can check issues such as a missing viewport tag. Whether mobile-friendliness is used directly in ranking, Google answers only in general terms. According to its page experience documentation there is no single ranking signal, and mobile-friendliness is named as one of several aspects of a good page experience. ## What matters in practice? Google recommends responsive web design as the easiest setup: the same URL and the same HTML for every device. Dynamic serving and separate mobile URLs are alternatives. Google states that it uses the mobile version of a page for indexing and ranking, and that only content shown on the mobile version is used for indexing. A page therefore needs the same content, structured data and meta information on mobile as on desktop. A viewport meta tag is part of the setup. Without it, Lighthouse notes, mobile devices render the page at desktop width and scale it down, which makes it hard to read. ## Example A shop shows a specifications table on desktop but hides it on phones. Visitors can still use the page, but the table is missing from what Google indexes. ## Mobile-first indexing: from announcement to completion - **November 18, 2014:** Google adds a “mobile-friendly” label to mobile search results. It appears for pages that are readable without zooming and avoid Flash. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2014/11/helping-users-find-mobile-friendly-pages)) - **February 26, 2015:** Google announces that it will expand its use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal for mobile searches from April 21, 2015. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2015/02/finding-more-mobile-friendly-search)) - **April 21, 2015:** The mobile-friendly update starts rolling out globally, unofficially called “Mobilegeddon”. It only affects rankings on mobile devices. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2015/04/rolling-out-mobile-friendly-update)) - **August 23, 2016:** Google removes the “mobile-friendly” label because 85% of pages in mobile results now carry it. Mobile-friendliness remains a ranking signal. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2016/08/helping-users-easily-access-content-on)) - **November 4, 2016:** Google announces mobile-first indexing and starts experimenting. In future, mainly the mobile version of a page is to be used for indexing and ranking. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2016/11/mobile-first-indexing)) - **March 26, 2018:** After a year and a half of testing, the migration begins. Google first moves sites that follow the best practices. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2018/03/rolling-out-mobile-first-indexing)) - **July 1, 2019:** Mobile-first indexing becomes the default for all new websites previously unknown to Google Search. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2019/05/mobile-first-indexing-by-default-for)) - **March 5, 2020:** Google announces that all websites will switch from September 2020. At this point 70% of sites shown in search results have already moved. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2020/03/announcing-mobile-first-indexing-for)) - **July 22, 2020:** Google postpones the complete switch to the end of March 2021. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2020/07/prepare-for-mobile-first-indexing-with)) - **October 31, 2023:** Google declares the move to mobile-first indexing complete. A small set of sites that do not work on mobile is still crawled with desktop Googlebot for now. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2023/10/mobile-first-is-here)) - **December 1, 2023:** The Mobile-Friendly Test and the Mobile Usability report in Search Console are retired. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2016/05/a-new-mobile-friendly-testing-tool)) - **July 5, 2024:** As the final step, Google crawls the remaining sites with the mobile Googlebot after this date. Content that is not accessible on mobile devices at all can no longer be indexed. ([Source](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/06/mobile-indexing-vlast-final-final.doc)) ## Related terms - [AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/amp/index.md) - [Separate mobile URLs](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/separate-mobile-urls/index.md) - [Mobile-first indexing](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/mobile-first-indexing/index.md) - [Responsive design](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/responsive-design/index.md) - [Viewport meta tag](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/viewport-meta-tag/index.md) - [Mobile-friendly update](https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/mobile-friendly-update/index.md) ## Sources - [Mobile sites and mobile-first indexing – Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/mobile/mobile-sites-mobile-first-indexing) - [Latest documentation updates (entry of Dec 1, 2023) – Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/updates) - [Document has a viewport meta tag – Lighthouse](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/pwa/viewport) - [Rolling out the mobile-friendly update – Google Search Central Blog (Apr 21, 2015)](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2015/04/rolling-out-mobile-friendly-update) --- Last updated: October 8, 2026 URL: https://seo-geo-glossary.com/en/glossary/mobile-friendliness/