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Google: Going Mobile Only Is Fine For Our Search Results

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We know, since the Google mobile-friendly update, that not having a mobile-friendly Web site can hurt your rankings in the Google mobile search results. But does not having a desktop-friendly Web site have a negative impact on your desktop rankings in Google?

Google’s John Mueller answered that question on Friday morning in a Google Hangout, saying that you do not need a desktop-friendly Web site to rank well on desktop and that as long as your mobile site renders on desktop, that would be just fine.

John Mueller said that you need to “make sure that desktop users can still see some of your content, if it is formatted in a way that works best for mobile, that’s perfectly fine.” “You definitely do not need a specific desktop website in addition to a mobile website,” Mueller added.

You can watch the question and answer by jumping to the 12:50 point in the video. Or you can see the video embed below:

So it seems Google is saying that going mobile-only with your website is just fine, and your site will not only rank well on mobile, but it also will rank just as well on desktop search results.

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About the author

Barry Schwartz
Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.

In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.

Barry can be followed on X here and you can learn more about Barry Schwartz over here or on his personal site.