The most recent update by Google in terms of Mobile- first index displays a very different theme. The update states that Google’s mobile-first index may involve the desktop version and not the AMP while indexing, if the mobile version of the website does not exist. Google is on the move and has slowly started to roll out mobile-first index directed to a small batch of users. Well! The most surprising piece of information learnt was that, Google now will not use the AMP version of the page by default for mobile index. Even if there does not exist a mobile-friendly option.
Let’s understand this via a simple example: If there exists a website which is only desktop-friendly, which means it does not have a mobile-friendly version built in the first place. But if you take a decision to skip the mobile-friendly version and precisely go in for building AMP pages for the website, in this scenario you have a desktop and AMP version available for the website. Here Google will consider the desktop version for Mobile-first index.AMP basically is very mobile-friendly and has a superb speed. AMP is specifically designed for mobile.
In the scenario above, Google has mentioned that it will not be using AMP version in the new mobile-first index format, rather it will preferably consider the desktop version. You can make way by forcing Google to use AMP, but to make this happen you will have to use rel alternate attribute. Google will by default only make use of the desktop version.
Let’s arrive to the conclusion by sharing a confirmation from Gary Illyes of Google. He states that if one makes AMP’s the pages’ mobile version, then it’s for sure that AMP’s would be picked. He also mentioned that he has not come across a site that had AMP and not a mobile version. I believe the confirmation solves many questions related to mobile-first index now and it has also updated us with the new twist by Google.
