GWT Fetch & Render displays desktop version of site as mobile

[Jacobsheehan]

Hi team,

I noticed that when I request a desktop rendering in GWT using fetch and render, pages render as the mobile version. Screenshot attached.

It's related to the VHS units in our CSS (as far as I'm aware).

Does anyone know what the implications of this may be? Does it mean googlebot can only see the mobile version of our website?

Any help is appreciated.

Jake

jgScJ

[bridget.randolph]

Hi Jacob,

Is the mobile version significantly different in terms of content? If they're the same, I wouldn't worry too much about this. Google's priority seems to be on a good mobile experience anyway, so I'd be more concerned if this was happening in the opposite direction. But as long as they're correctly seeing that you have a mobile-friendly site (your site looks beautiful by the way!), and they're able to access all of the content regardless of user-agent, I'd consider this a low priority fix.

That said, if you haven't already, I'd suggest checking out your mobile vs desktop rankings (especially if you know when the issue started and can do a before and after comparison) and see if there's a significant discrepancy there. Of course there will always be minor differences in mobile vs desktop but if it's a big difference that could be a sign that this is causing real issues and should be fixed asap.

Hope that helps!