Mobile-first indexing

Your phone layout is the source of truth. Content, links, structured data and metadata must be present on mobile. If they exist only on desktop, they are not used for indexing or ranking.

This decides what Google can match to a query. If your /pricing page shows a feature table only on desktop, and hides it on mobile, Google cannot read that table. You will not rank for “yourproduct pricing tiers” even if the desktop page looks rich.

• Text, images or links that load only on desktop
• Structured data added only to desktop templates
• Title, meta description or robots tags that differ between desktop and mobile
• Navigation items or footer links missing on mobile

Check a real page. Load yourproduct.com/guides/getting-started on a phone and a laptop. If the H1, intro, internal links, and schema markup differ, Google keeps the mobile version. Fix the mobile one first.

Responsive design is the recommended setup. One URL serves the same HTML content to all devices, styled with CSS for different viewports. Keep the mobile HTML complete.

If you run separate mobile URLs, for example m.example.com/page, pair them correctly. On the desktop URL, add rel=alternate to the mobile URL. On the mobile URL, add rel=canonical back to the desktop URL. Keep content, links and structured data equivalent on both.

Search Console shows the mobile crawl first. The Performance report reflects what Google indexed from the mobile version. Filter by Device: Mobile to see clicks and queries from phone users.

The Core Web Vitals reports prioritise mobile field data. If your mobile LCP is slow, the page can lose visibility even if desktop is fast.

1. 1

   Open the mobile page

   On your phone, load yourproduct.com/pricing. View source if you can, or use your desktop browser in a small viewport.

2. 2

   Compare key elements

   Match H1, intro, main copy, internal links, and any product table with the desktop version. They must exist on mobile.

3. 3

   Check metadata and structured data

   Ensure the title, meta description, robots directives and JSON-LD are identical or equivalent on mobile.

4. 4

   Review navigation and links

   Make sure header, footer and in-body links present on desktop also appear on mobile. Avoid hiding cross-links behind infinite sliders.

5. 5

   Fix and recheck

   Update the mobile template to include the missing parts. When done, monitor the page in Search Console for impressions on the target queries.

A fixed page example: /pricing shows the full feature grid, the same FAQ schema, and the same internal links on both mobile and desktop. The Performance report starts to show impressions for “pricing features” on mobile.