It goes without saying how important it is today for every business to be present and represented on the Internet. A good and functional website can improve your business in many ways and help you get in touch with your target audience and potential future clients. This is precisely why the issue of positioning in the search results is very important. It matters if your site shows up in search results for key phrases that are important to you. Considering that searches on mobile devices are constantly increasing, it is important to monitor ranking results on both desktop computers and mobile devices. Google ‘s John Mueller explains why ranking results for mobile and desktop can differ and what factors can affect those rankings.

Ranking for mobile and desktop

The question that was asked was why the rankings on computers and mobile devices differ, given that the transition to mobile-first indexing has long been made and that Google has only one index from which it displays results.

Mueller pointed out that indexing and ranking are two different things. Just because we’re in a mobile-first indexing environment doesn’t mean that the mobile and desktop versions will rank equally because they’re indexed as mobile.

“So, mobile-first indexing primarily refers to the technical aspect of content indexing.” And we use mobile Googlebot for content indexing. But once the content is indexed, the ranking is still (sort of) completely separate. “

Mueller went on to explain that in some situations, the context of the search engine and the device used during the search can change the ranking. He explained that for some searches, user needs vary by device and this can affect rankings.

“And it’s normal for desktop and mobile rankings to differ.” Sometimes it has to do with things like speed. Sometimes it’s related to things like mobile adaptation.

Sometimes it is also related to the different elements that are displayed on the search results page. For example, if you’re browsing on your phone, you might want more local information because you’re on the go. Whereas if you’re shopping on desktop, you might want more images or more videos to show up in your search results. We therefore tend to show … a different mix of different types of search results.

And because of this, it may happen that the ranking or visibility of individual pages differs between mobile devices and computers. And that’s basically normal. It’s part of how we rank. I wouldn’t say it would be related to the technical aspect of content indexing. “

The follow-up question was about whether the lower ranking on mobile devices is due to page load speed.

Mueller responded:

“… Mobile-friendliness is definitely a factor. There may be other factors involved, especially with mobile devices and computers. These are the kind of differences that always exist in terms of search results on mobile devices and computers. Sometimes it’s just because it’s a different device or a different internet connection, so basically we’re using different personalization settings. “

The difference in ranking is due to personalization

Mueller confirmed that mobile indexing is just indexing and separate from the ranking part of the algorithm.

He also found that personalization plays a role in occasional differences in search rankings between mobile and desktop searches. He said the needs of someone on a mobile device may differ from the needs of someone on a computer.

So, if one is trying to diagnose why there are differences in rankings between devices, then it might be useful to see why top-ranking mobile pages are preferred over lower-ranking pages in the context of mobile and personalization.

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Source: searchenginejournal