Free mobile-friendly test: what to use now Google retired theirs

Google retired its mobile-friendly test at the end of 2023, and the resulting confusion has been unhelpful: the tool went away, the requirements did not, and mobile-first indexing means the mobile rendering of your site is the version being assessed.

The viewport meta tag

One line, and without it a mobile browser assumes a desktop-width layout and zooms out to fit. Everything is technically present and nothing is readable.

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

Horizontal overflow

The most common mobile failure and the easiest to miss on a desktop monitor. One wide table, one fixed-width image or one long unbroken string, and the whole page scrolls sideways.

The fix is to let wide content scroll inside its own container rather than allowing the page body to. Tables, code blocks and diagrams should each own their overflow.

Tap targets

Around 44 by 44 pixels, with enough space that a thumb cannot hit two at once. Navigation links set close together for a mouse become a guessing game on a phone.

Text size

16px or larger for body text. Below that, mobile browsers may zoom out to fit, which undoes the layout you designed.

Content parity, the one that quietly costs rankings

Under mobile-first indexing, the mobile version is what gets indexed. Content hidden on mobile is content not indexed. Structured data omitted from the mobile template is structured data that does not count.

This catches sites that built a deliberately lighter mobile experience for good reasons and did not realise they had made the lighter version the canonical one.

What free means here

Our mobile-friendly test is free, with no account needed for your first scan. It renders at a mobile viewport rather than inferring from your CSS, and reports viewport configuration, overflow, tap target sizing and text legibility.