Google is all set to transfer all the websites to mobile-first indexing, and they have confirmed that 70% of sites have already made the transtion. The remain 30% of the websites will be moved ot the mobile first indexing by September 2020 and Google officials have stated that by September all the websites will be officially switched over to the mobile first indexing.

The time between now and September 2020 will be very much crucial as Google will be continuing its process of moving the websites to mobile-first indexing by the time they get ready. It your website is showing an increase in Googlebot’s crawling, then it is a clear indication that your website has been moved to the mobile first indexing and this will be mainly from the mobile smartphone user-agent.

You can also check the status of your website’s mobile first indexing in your Search Console Tool’s settings page and also in the URL inspection tool. The guidance from Google, that is related to optimizing a website for mobile-first indexing is the same for now also.

When you optimize your website for mobile-first indexing, you need to check some factors such as:

1) The On-page content of the website is the same on mobile and desktop versions

2) The Meta data of the website is the same on both mobile and desktop versions

3) The website’s structured data is the same on both mobile and desktop versions

The URL testing tool by Google will help the website owners to easily check both the versions of a website, which are desktop and mobile version. You can make sure that both the search engine and real visitors can see similar content on the desktop and mobile versions.

Google has clearly recommended website owners to now use separate mobile URLs (which are also known as “m-dot”), as such URLs will create various issues and confusions for the search engines as well as users. The major thing that you need to take care is to make sure that your website has a responsive design.

Google’s URL testing tool allows site owners to easily check both the desktop and mobile versions of a page. So you can ensure Google (and visitors) can see identical content on desktop and mobile.

Google specifically recommends not using separate mobile URLs (also known as “m-dot”) because they can cause “issues and confusion” for search engines and users. The gold standard for mobile-first indexing is responsive web design.