Mobile first indexing by Google

Abhi

Good news for webmasters. You now have time till next March to welcome the mobile-first indexing by Google.

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. At that time, we're planning on switching our indexing over to mobile-first indexing.

Among many other things, Google wants to use the same Robots meta tags on the mobile version as well as the desktop version.

Google discourages the use of small, low-resolution images for the mobile version. If such images are in use, it might not show up on Google Images or might not be indexed at all.

Are you using lazy loading ? I think Discourse does that. A couple of other mainstream software too. Google says

avoid lazy-loading your primary content based on user interactions (like swiping, clicking, or typing), because Googlebot won't trigger these user interactions.

Jason

What as a forum owner do you think i need to do. I don't understand what Google wants from me

Abhi

Responsive theme
Clean and clear images
Best Lazy loading practices- https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/lazy-loading
Primary content same on the mobile and desktop
Best image practices - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/114016
Best video practices - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/156442
No small thumbnails
Meaningful alt attributes

In short, if you are using a CMS which is updated according to the latest SEO guidelines, there is nothing much you need to do. Google is being specific about the landing page on mobile. You should have some means to show all content that is on desktop but also make it user friendly.

admin

I hope Flarum will be ready by the time it hits stable. I like to think it is ready now.

Considering Flarum is a SPA, I don't know how they will treat lazy loading of topics. Google says if you can't see, it is possible that Google bot can't see either.

Abhi

Does that mean we would need pagination ? I read somewhere that Google is not specific about Pagination anymore.

admin

I am not sure. I remember seeing a pagination plugin in Flarum sometime back.

phenomlab

admin you already have pagination with the "load more" button when you scroll to the bottom of the posts window

admin

phenomlab You mean the " Topics " display ? For the posts in a topics I see only the sidebar scroll.

I think the topics parts is safe if we use the Sitemap extension.

phenomlab

admin You mean the " Topics " display ? For the posts in a topics I see only the sidebar scroll.

Yes. When viewing the posts themselves, Ajax is being used to auto load content as you scroll past the viewport.

admin

phenomlab Google says, we see what guests see. This is in reference to lazy loading. It is a Google policy not to allow different content for visitors and for search engine. Thinking that way, I don't think Google will even honour sitemaps if certain areas are not visible in standard use case.

phenomlab

admin not sure I agree. That would negate the point of a sitemap in the first place. Google uses that to build an index to crawl

Abhi

Still have some doubts about what to do about mobile-first indexing ? Check this video

admin

I watched it fully. It is more or less the same as we discussed here. The whole point seems to keep the content in eye catching area and display it as much as possible. Lazy loading might come hard in some cases from what I see.