The other day we reported that Google confirmed they are testing the mobile first index in the wild. But we didn't know the details on how often, when and how to tell when that mobile first index was being tested. In fact, many of the Google tracking tools may be taking notice of these tests.
Well, Gary Illyes from Google explained at State of Search yesterday that if you are running a m-dot site, you can tell if the search results snippets on the desktop results show the m-dot version of the title tag and meta description. That is of course, if the title tag and meta descriptions are different between your m-dot version and the desktop version. Of course, in hindsight, that is an obvious way to see the test in the wild, but I didn't think of it.
Here are tweets covering it:
#stateofsearch @methode if you have an m. Site, check the search snippets to see if you're site is affected by Mobile 1st tests
— Gianluca Fiorelli (@gfiorelli1) October 10, 2017
Means that if you see a search snippet that is made up from m. Title tag & Meta Description, and not desktop 1, then ur site is M1st tested
— Gianluca Fiorelli (@gfiorelli1) October 10, 2017
I don't personally have any m-dot sites to test on but I guess some savvy tool maker can set up tests to track m-dot domains and see when this switch over happens. And then share screen shots of the search results to show Google testing it in the wild.
I also assumed the the responsive sites would be in the first batch of tests, but this means the Google is probably already testing m-dot sites as well.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
