Indexability differs on mobile: fix this first

What it means

The robots meta tag on the mobile version of the page differs from the desktop version. This can happen when a server injects different meta tags for mobile versus desktop, or when JavaScript rewrites the tag after the initial HTML is served. Googlebot sees two different indexability signals for the same page.

Why it matters

Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning it indexes and ranks the mobile version. If the mobile version has noindex while desktop has index, Google will exclude the page from search results. If the mobile version has index but desktop has noindex, the page may be indexed but with conflicting signals. In either case, Googlebot may skip rendering or misinterpret the page's intended visibility.

How to fix it

1. Verify that the mobile and desktop versions have identical robots meta tags in the raw HTML (before JavaScript runs).
2. Ensure the mobile version does not inject noindex via JavaScript — if it does, move the tag to the server-rendered HTML.
3. Check that the mobile version includes the same primary content, headings, and structured data as the desktop version.
4. Use the URL Inspection tool to confirm Googlebot sees the correct indexability directive on the mobile URL.

When it's not a problem

This is a false alarm if the mobile and desktop versions are intentionally different pages (for example, a mobile-only landing page with noindex and a desktop version with index). It is also acceptable when the mobile version is a subset of the desktop page but both are meant to be indexed, and the difference is in non-critical meta tags like canonical or hreflang.

How common is it?

Not yet observed in our audit sample. We publish this explainer because the check runs on every crawl; once an audited site trips it, this page will break the issue down by platform, gatekeeper, vertical and country.

Related guides

• Mobile-First Indexing: How to Pass Parity Checks