No Need to Change Canonicals from Desktop for Mobile First Indexing

Just a reminder, if you are updating any canonicals, you do not need to update all desktop/mobile canonicals on your site to make the mobile version be the primary URL.

We included this information in our Google Mobile First Indexing Guide, but some people are still asking whether they need to switch or not.

@shaunmaharaj yes, no change there.

— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) January 13, 2017

Why does Google not require that the mobile page be designated as the primary URL when the canonicals are referencing between the desktop and mobile version of the page?  When Google first announced the indexing change, they told The SEM Post that site owners didn’t need to make changes.

Doantam Phan from Google said, “Sites do not have to make changes to their canonical links; we’ll continue to use these links as guides to serve the appropriate results to a user searching on desktop or mobile.”

Gary Illyes confirmed the same earlier as well, saying they were trying to make the switch easy.  And for some site owners, swapping desktop/mobile canonicals could be a huge undertaking.

@gfiorelli1 @aleyda asking people to switch these would take decades, so we're trying to be a bit smarty about them

— Gary Illyes ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ (@methode) November 5, 2016

So just a reminder, you do not need to worry about canonicals that are merely referencing between a mobile and desktop version.  Google will still properly reference the two… the only change is Google will begin indexing the mobile version as the primary version of the page for its search index.

Mobile first indexing is still in the testing phase, there is no timeline for when they will officially make the switch for all sites and all users.

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Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post

Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.

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