Google's Mobile-Friendly Test has gone: how to test now

Key takeaways

The Google mobile friendly test no longer exists. Google retired it, along with the Mobile Usability report in Search Console, on 1 December 2023. Three free tools replace it between them, and none is as useful as ten minutes with a real phone. This is the order we recommend testing in.

• Google's Mobile-Friendly Test and Mobile Usability report were retired on 1 December 2023.
• Lighthouse in Chrome is Google's suggested replacement for an automated audit.
• PageSpeed Insights shows real-user Core Web Vitals for mobile visitors.
• A real phone on mobile data finds problems no tool reports.

What happened to Google's Mobile-Friendly Test?

Google retired the Mobile-Friendly Test tool, the Mobile-Friendly Test API and the Mobile Usability report in Search Console on 1 December 2023. It announced the plan in April 2023, explaining that mobile usability remains critical for users but that other robust tools for evaluating it had emerged, including Lighthouse from Chrome.

The old test gave a simple pass or fail, which was reassuring and limited. A page could pass while being slow, cluttered and hard to enquire from. Its retirement is a prompt to test what matters to customers, not just whether text is large enough.

• Why mobile-friendly web design is essential for UK businesses
• Is mobile-friendliness a Google ranking factor?

Which free tools replace it?

Three free tools cover what the Mobile-Friendly Test did and more. Lighthouse audits a single page for performance, accessibility and best practice. PageSpeed Insights adds data from real visitors. Chrome DevTools device mode lets you preview a page at phone sizes on a laptop.

• Lighthouse: built into Chrome DevTools. Run it in mobile mode on any page.
• PageSpeed Insights: pagespeed.web.dev. Shows lab results and real-user field data.
• Chrome DevTools device mode: previews the layout at chosen screen sizes.
• Search Console Core Web Vitals report: groups pages by status for mobile.
• Search Console URL Inspection: shows the page as Google's smartphone crawler fetched it.

• Why is your mobile PageSpeed score lower than desktop?

How do you run a mobile test with Lighthouse?

Open the page in Chrome on a laptop, right-click and choose Inspect, select the Lighthouse tab, choose Mobile as the device and run the report. In a minute or so you get scores and a list of specific issues. The accessibility section flags small tap targets and low contrast. The performance section lists what is slowing the page.

Read the findings, not the score. A list item that says the largest image is 2MB, or that buttons lack accessible names, is something you can hand to a developer. A score of 71 is not.

• Run it in an incognito window so extensions do not skew results.
• Test your top landing pages, not just the homepage.
• Run it three times and take the middle result: scores vary.
• Save the reports so you can compare after changes.

Why is an emulator not enough?

An emulator shows the layout at a phone's dimensions. It does not reproduce a thumb, a mid-range processor, patchy mobile data, the on-screen keyboard covering half the form or Safari's particular behaviours. Chrome's documentation describes device mode as a first-order approximation of how a page looks and feels on a mobile device.

PageSpeed Insights' lab test simulates a mid-tier phone on a mobile network, which is closer to reality, but it still measures a single load from a data centre. Only its field data, collected from real Chrome users over the previous 28 days, reflects what your visitors experienced.

• Which devices should you test your website on?
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How do you test on a real phone?

Switch off Wi-Fi so you are on mobile data, open a private browsing window and try to do what a customer would. Time it. The test takes ten minutes and finds the problems that cost enquiries: the number you cannot tap, the menu that will not close, the form that zooms and jumps.

• Search for your service and tap through from Google, as a customer would.
• Read the first screen: is it clear what you do and where?
• Find a price or a service detail within three taps.
• Call, message or submit the form, and time how long it takes.
• Rotate the phone, scroll the full page and open the menu.
• Repeat on an iPhone and on an Android phone.

• The mobile readiness scorecard: score your site in an hour
• User testing for small business websites

What can the tools not tell you?

No tool can tell you whether the page persuades. Lighthouse will not notice that your headline says nothing, that your prices are missing or that the only way to enquire is three taps away. A page can score in the 90s and convert badly, and a page scoring 60 can be the best in its market.

Use the tools to remove technical obstacles, and use people to judge the experience. The most valuable test is to hand your phone to someone who has never seen the site and watch them try to book or enquire without helping.

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see since the old test was retired: owners search for it, land on a third-party checker, get a green tick and stop. The tick confirms that a viewport tag exists and text is above a minimum size. It says nothing about the 6-second load on mobile data or the contact form that cannot be submitted on an iPhone.

Global Bridge Labs (GBL) pairs one automated report with one real-phone walk-through for that reason. The first produces a technical fix list. The second produces the commercial one, and it is almost always the more valuable.

• See client work
• Website Design & Development for UK businesses
• Make your website work properly on mobile

Next step

Run Lighthouse on your top landing page today, then pick up a phone and try to become your own customer. Between them you will have a clearer picture than the old pass or fail test ever gave.