Google's Mobile-Friendly Test Is Gone: What to Use Instead in 2026

For years the first stop for "is my site mobile friendly?" was a Google tool: paste a URL, wait a few seconds, get a green "Page is mobile-friendly" or a list of problems. That tool no longer exists. If you have searched for it recently and landed on a dead link or a help page, here is what happened, why it still matters, and what to use instead.

Is Google's Mobile-Friendly Test still available?

No. Google retired the Mobile-Friendly Test, the Mobile-Friendly Test API and the Mobile Usability report in Search Console on 1 December 2023, after announcing it in advance on the Search Central blog. Google pointed site owners to Lighthouse, which runs deeper mobile checks, as the replacement.

What did not go away is the reason the tool existed. Google moved every site to mobile-first indexing: it crawls and indexes pages with its smartphone crawler, and since July 2024 even the last desktop-only sites are crawled that way. Whatever your page shows on a phone is what Google indexes. Text or links missing from the mobile version are missing from Google.

So you still need to check your pages on mobile. You just need other tools.

What the old test checked

The Mobile-Friendly Test looked for a short list of problems, and the same list is still a good checklist:

The single most common failure was the first one. The fix is one line in your page template:

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

Do not add user-scalable=no or maximum-scale=1. They stop people from zooming in to read, which is an accessibility failure, and Lighthouse flags them.

Alternative 1: a mobile-friendly checker

The closest replacement for the old one-click test is a dedicated checker. Our free Mobile-Friendly Test makes the same checks without a Google account: it loads the page as Googlebot smartphone, reads the viewport tag and up to six of the page's stylesheets, and reports content wider than the screen, small text, disabled zoom, plugins and CSS or JavaScript that robots.txt hides from Google. You get the same kind of verdict ("Page is mobile-friendly" or the failures that stop it) plus a score for each area.

It reads the HTML and CSS the server sends and does not run JavaScript, so it is fast and shows what Google receives first. For pages built entirely in the browser, pair it with a rendering test from the next section.

Alternative 2: Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights

Lighthouse is the tool Google pointed to when it retired the test. It renders the page in an emulated phone and audits it, including the viewport, font sizes, tap targets and Core Web Vitals.

• In Chrome, open DevTools (F12), choose the Lighthouse tab, select Mobile and run the audit. The SEO and Accessibility sections hold most of the old mobile-friendly checks.
• PageSpeed Insights runs the same Lighthouse audit from Google's servers and adds real-user data from the Chrome UX Report when the page has enough traffic. Our Page Speed Checker shows the same mobile scores and field data in one view.

Lighthouse is thorough but slower, and a single run can vary with network conditions, so judge trends rather than one score.

Alternative 3: Search Console URL Inspection

For pages on your own verified site, URL Inspection in Search Console is the most authoritative check, because it uses Google's own crawler and renderer. Inspect a URL, choose Test live URL, then View tested page: you see the screenshot Googlebot smartphone rendered, the HTML after JavaScript and any resources that failed to load.

If the screenshot is unstyled or empty, Google could not load your CSS or JavaScript. The usual cause is a robots.txt rule such as Disallow: /wp-includes/ or Disallow: /assets/. Check yours with the Robots.txt Checker.

Alternative 4: Chrome device mode and a real phone

Chrome DevTools' device toolbar (Ctrl+Shift+M, or Cmd+Shift+M on a Mac) resizes the page to common phone sizes and simulates touch. It is the fastest way to find which element causes sideways scrolling: scroll right and inspect whatever sticks out.

Nothing replaces opening the page on an actual phone, though. Fill in a form, open the menu, tap the small links in the footer. Emulators do not show how a cookie banner covers the content or how a sticky header eats half the screen.

A quick mobile checklist

1. Viewport tag in every template, with width=device-width and initial-scale=1, and zoom left enabled.
2. No fixed widths over about 480px on page containers, tables or iframes; wrap wide tables in a container with overflow-x: auto.
3. 16px body text, and form fields at 16px so iPhones do not zoom in when they get focus.
4. Tap targets of at least 48 by 48 CSS pixels with space between them.
5. Same content on mobile and desktop, including structured data and internal links, because Google indexes the mobile version.
6. CSS and JavaScript crawlable, so Google can render the layout. The Googlebot Simulator shows what a bot receives compared with a visitor.

Run the Mobile-Friendly Test for the quick verdict, Lighthouse for rendering and tap targets, and URL Inspection when you need Google's own view. Together they cover everything the old tool did, and quite a bit more.