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Google has confirmed that the mobile-first indexing rollout still doesn’t have a deadline
In a recent video named “Google Search News (Dec ‘21)” on YouTube, Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller has confirmed that there is still no deadline for the mobile-first indexing rollout.
First announcement
Google had announced earlier in March 2020, that all websites would be mobile-first indexing by September 2020.
“From our analysis, most sites shown in search results are good to go for mobile-first indexing, and 70% of those shown in our search results have already shifted over. To simplify, we’ll be switching to mobile-first indexing for all websites starting September 2020. In the meantime, we’ll continue moving sites to mobile-first indexing when our systems recognize that they’re ready”, announced Google on the Search Central blog.
Deadline extended due to the pandemic
However, things took a turn for the worse when the Covid pandemic struck leaving site owners in dismay. In light of this, Google announced on July 22, 2021, that they will be delaying the rollout of mobile-first indexing and extended the deadline to March 2021.
“Our initial plan was to enable mobile-first indexing for all sites in Search in September 2020. We realize that in these uncertain times, it’s not always easy to focus on work as otherwise, so we’ve decided to extend the timeframe to the end of March 2021”, said Google.
No deadline for the mobile-first indexing rollout
Google announced that it is facing some “unexpected challenges” when moving some websites to mobile-first indexing permanently. And due to this, they decided to keep the timeline open and not commit to a deadline.
Here’s the announcement:
“Our existing plan was to complete mobile-first indexing by March of this year.
In the meantime, after analyzing the sites that are not yet indexed mobile-first, we’ve determined that some of these sites are still not ready to be shifted over due to various, unexpected challenges that they’re facing. Because of these difficulties, we’ve decided to leave the timeline open for the last steps of mobile-first indexing.”
Current status
Google’s John Mueller confirmed on December 23, 2021, that the mobile-first indexing is still a work in progress. Websites are gradually moving to mobile-first indexing, however, there is still no end date for all websites to have mobile-first indexing.
John Mueller affirmed:
“Mobile-first indexing is still ongoing. And because of issues that we’ve seen on a small number of websites, we’ve decided to leave it without a final date for now. We’ll continue to inform sites of problems as needed.”
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