Mobile-Friendly Test

What the Mobile-Friendly Test checks

A mobile-friendly page fits a phone screen, loads in reasonable time on a mobile connection, and can be read and used with a finger instead of a mouse. Google no longer offers a standalone mobile-friendly test: it retired its Mobile-Friendly Test tool and the Mobile Usability report in Search Console in December 2023. Mobile usability now comes down to the same signals as everything else, mainly Core Web Vitals and the Lighthouse audits.

This test checks the URL you enter the way a phone sees it. It looks for a correct viewport meta tag, runs Google PageSpeed Insights on the mobile strategy for the Lighthouse performance and accessibility scores, measures the page weight, looks for legacy plugins such as Flash or Java applets, and flags intrusive prompts, such as asking for notification or location permission as soon as the page loads. You also get a screenshot of the page as Lighthouse rendered it on a simulated phone.

Why it matters

Google crawls and indexes most sites with its smartphone crawler, so the mobile version of a page is the version it evaluates. A page without a viewport tag is rendered at desktop width and shrunk to fit, which makes text unreadable and tap targets tiny, and many visitors leave rather than zoom.

Weight and speed matter more on phones: slower processors and variable networks turn a heavy page into a long wait. Accessibility overlaps with mobile usability too, because small text, low contrast and unlabeled buttons are even harder to use on a small screen. Plugins such as Flash no longer run in any current browser, so content that depends on them is simply missing.

How to fix common problems

Add <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> to the head of every template, and do not disable zooming with user-scalable=no or maximum-scale=1. Build layouts with relative widths, media queries and flexible images (max-width: 100%) so nothing scrolls sideways. See our mobile viewport guide.

Cut page weight where it is largest, usually images and JavaScript: serve responsive images in WebP or AVIF, lazy-load images below the fold and remove scripts you do not need. Our page weight guide shows where to look. Replace Flash or Java content with HTML5 video, canvas or plain HTML.

Work through the accessibility findings Lighthouse lists, starting with color contrast, missing labels and font sizes, and ask for permissions such as notifications only after a user action. Re-test after each change. The full PerfoMetrix audit puts these results next to Core Web Vitals, security and SEO, 170+ checks in one report.

Questions

Does Google still have a Mobile-Friendly Test?

No. Google retired the Mobile-Friendly Test tool, its API and the Mobile Usability report in Search Console in December 2023. Lighthouse and the Core Web Vitals reports remain, and this test is built on Lighthouse.

Is a responsive design enough?

A responsive layout handles the viewport and screen width, but a responsive page can still be slow, heavy or hard to use. That is why this test also looks at performance, accessibility and page weight.

Why does the screenshot look different from my phone?

Lighthouse renders the page on a simulated mid-range phone with a fixed screen size and no cookies, so it sees what a first-time visitor sees, including cookie banners and pop-ups.

Does this test the desktop version too?

No. This tool runs the mobile strategy only. Pro scans in the full audit also run the desktop strategy.