Google Retires the Mobile Usability Report: What to Use Instead

If you opened Search Console this week and couldn’t find the Mobile Usability report, nothing is wrong with your account. Google retired the mobile usability report on 1 December 2023, along with the Mobile-Friendly Test tool and the Mobile-Friendly Test API.

The short answer to “what now?” is this: mobile usability still matters, but you now check it with Lighthouse, Chrome DevTools, PageSpeed Insights and the URL Inspection live test. In this guide I explain what changed, why Google did it, and how I’m replacing each check the old report used to do.

What Google Retired on 1 December 2023

Google first told us about this in April 2023, in a Search Central blog post about page experience. The post said that starting 1 December 2023, three things would go away:

• The Mobile Usability report in Search Console, which listed pages with mobile problems across your whole site.
• The Mobile-Friendly Test tool, the free page where you could paste any URL and get a pass or fail.
• The Mobile-Friendly Test API, which let scripts and SEO tools run that same test with code.

Google confirmed the change publicly on 4 December 2023. The old Mobile-Friendly Test address now sends you to Lighthouse documentation. If you try an old bookmark to the report inside Search Console, you land on the Overview page instead.

If you have saved reports or exports from the old tool, keep them. There is no way to get that history back from Search Console now.

Why Google Removed the Mobile Usability Report

Google’s own explanation was simple. When it launched the Mobile-Friendly Test, there were few good tools for checking mobile pages. Since then, Google says, many other strong resources have appeared, and it named Lighthouse from Chrome as one of them.

I think there are two other reasons that make sense, even if Google didn’t spell them out.

• Most sites already pass. Responsive design (a layout that adjusts to any screen size) is now the default in almost every theme and website builder. In my experience, the report was “all green” for most sites I looked at, so it rarely told anyone something new.
• The checks were basic. The report only looked at a handful of issues, like tiny text and buttons that sat too close together. A page could pass every check and still be annoying to use on a phone.

The timing also fits a bigger shift. On 31 October 2023, Google said its move to mobile-first indexing (Google mainly using the mobile version of a page for crawling and ranking) was complete. When Google already looks at the mobile version of nearly every site, a separate “is this mobile-friendly?” badge matters less.

Does Mobile Usability Still Matter for SEO?

Yes. This is the most important point, and it’s where I see people get confused. Removing a report is not the same as removing a ranking factor.

In the same April 2023 post, Google said mobile usability is still critical for users and remains part of its page experience guidance. Google also said that its core ranking systems look at a variety of signals that line up with good page experience, and that there is no single page experience signal.

Here is how I explain it to business owners:

• Google indexes the mobile version of your site. If content is missing or broken on mobile, Google may never see it.
• Most visitors on many sites arrive on phones. A page that is hard to use on a small screen loses enquiries and sales, whatever it ranks.
• Core Web Vitals (Google’s speed and stability metrics) are still reported in Search Console, with a separate mobile view.

So the job hasn’t changed. Only the tools have. If you want a refresher on how page experience grew from mobile to desktop, I covered that in what changed when page experience came to desktop.

What to Use Instead of the Mobile Usability Report

No single tool replaces the old report one for one. I now use a small set of tools, each for a different job.

Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools

Lighthouse is a free, open-source auditing tool built into Chrome. It is the tool Google pointed people to, and it’s my first stop now.

1. Open the page in Chrome on your computer.
2. Right-click anywhere and choose Inspect to open DevTools.
3. Click the Lighthouse tab. If you can’t see it, look under the » arrow.
4. Choose Mobile as the device and tick at least the SEO, Accessibility and Performance categories.
5. Click Analyze page load and wait for the report.

The SEO section checks mobile basics such as a missing viewport tag, legible font sizes and tap targets. Google’s Lighthouse documentation explains that a tap target fails when it is smaller than 48 by 48 pixels and overlaps nearby targets. That is the same kind of problem the old “clickable elements too close together” error flagged.

One habit I’d suggest: run Lighthouse in an Incognito window. Browser extensions can slow the page down or change what it shows, which skews the results.

PageSpeed Insights

PageSpeed Insights runs Lighthouse for you on Google’s servers, so you don’t need to open DevTools. It also shows real-user Core Web Vitals data from Chrome users when your page or site has enough traffic.

I use it when I want to share a result with a client or a developer, because the link is easy to send. If the report looks confusing, my guide on how to read a PageSpeed Insights report walks through each section.

URL Inspection Live Test

For pages on sites you own, the URL Inspection tool in Search Console is still very useful. Run a live test, then click View tested page and look at the screenshot.

This shows how Googlebot Smartphone renders the page. I check three things here:

• Does the main content appear, or is it hidden behind a pop-up or a script that failed?
• Does the layout fit the screen, or is it cut off at the side?
• Are there blocked resources listed under More info, such as CSS files that robots.txt stops Google from loading?

Blocked CSS was a common cause of false “not mobile-friendly” warnings in the old tool. It is still worth checking, because Google can’t see your layout properly without it.

Chrome DevTools Device Mode

Lighthouse gives you a score, but it doesn’t use the page like a person would. For that, I use device mode in DevTools.

Open DevTools, click the phone-and-tablet icon at the top left, then pick a device size from the list. Scroll the page, open menus, fill in a form, and tap the buttons. This is where I usually catch problems no automated tool reports, like a sticky banner that covers the “Add to cart” button.

Real Phones

Emulators are good, but they are not perfect. I always test key pages on at least one real Android phone and one iPhone before I call a mobile fix done.

Real phones show issues with touch, slow connections and on-screen keyboards that a desktop browser hides. You don’t need a device lab. The phones in your office are usually enough.

How to Check for the Old Mobile Usability Errors Yourself

The old report flagged a fixed list of errors. If you’ve worked through them before, you’ll know them well. I explained how to fix each one in my earlier guide to the Search Console Mobile Usability report errors. The fixes haven’t changed, but here is how I now find each one without the report.

Viewport Not Set

The viewport tag tells the browser to fit the page to the screen width. Without it, phones show a tiny zoomed-out desktop page.

Lighthouse flags this in its SEO section. You can also view the page source and search for viewport. A standard tag looks like this:

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

Viewport Not Set to Device Width

Some sites set a fixed width, like width=1024. That forces a desktop layout on phones. Check the same tag and make sure it uses width=device-width.

Content Wider Than Screen

This means the page scrolls sideways on a phone. In DevTools device mode, try swiping left and right. If the page moves, something is too wide.

The usual causes I see are large images without a max width, wide tables, and embedded videos or maps with a fixed pixel width. A common CSS fix for images is to set max-width: 100% and height: auto.

Text Too Small to Read

Lighthouse’s SEO section has a font size check that reports how much of the page uses text that is too small. As a rule of thumb, I aim for body text of at least 16 pixels on mobile. It reads well and also stops iPhones from zooming in when someone taps a form field.

Clickable Elements Too Close Together

The Lighthouse tap targets audit covers this. In my experience, the usual problems are footer links stacked tightly, small social icons, and pagination numbers. Adding padding around links often fixes it without changing how the page looks.

Uses Incompatible Plugins

This error was about Flash and similar plugins that phones can’t run. It’s rare now, but if you still have old embedded content, replace it with HTML5 video or a modern embed.

How to Monitor Mobile Usability Across a Whole Site

This is the real gap. The old report watched every page Google had crawled and emailed you when new issues appeared. Lighthouse checks one page at a time.

Here is the approach I use instead.

1. Test templates, not every URL. Most sites have a few page types: home, category, product, blog post, contact. Mobile problems usually live in the template, so testing one or two pages per template covers most of the site.
2. Crawl with a mobile user agent. Many desktop SEO crawlers can crawl as a smartphone and render JavaScript. Use this to spot missing content, missing viewport tags or pages that differ between mobile and desktop.
3. Watch the Core Web Vitals report. It is still in Search Console, and the mobile view groups pages by issue. A sudden jump in “Poor” URLs often points to a template change that also broke layout.
4. Automate Lighthouse. If you have a developer, Lighthouse can run from the command line or inside your deployment process. That way a new release gets checked before it goes live.
5. Retest after every theme or plugin change. In my experience, this is when mobile layouts break most often, especially on WordPress sites.

If you used the Mobile-Friendly Test API in scripts, those calls will now fail. Move those checks to Lighthouse. If you use the Search Console API for indexing checks, my post on what the URL Inspection API can do covers the parts you can still use for bulk monitoring.

Other Search Console Changes to Know About

The Mobile Usability report isn’t the only page experience change in 2023. A few others are worth knowing so they don’t catch you off guard.

• The Page Experience report is being reworked. In April 2023, Google said it would turn into a simpler page that links to its guidance and to the Core Web Vitals and HTTPS reports.
• The “Good page experience” filter is going. In November 2023, Google said it is retiring this search appearance filter from the Performance report, with API support ending after 180 days.
• INP is coming. In May 2023, Google announced that Interaction to Next Paint (INP, a measure of how quickly a page responds when someone taps or clicks) will replace First Input Delay (FID) as a Core Web Vital in March 2024. FID is still the metric in use today, but I’d start looking at your INP numbers now. Slow responses to taps are a mobile usability problem too.

Common Mistakes I See After Tools Get Retired

When Google removes a report, I often see the same reactions. Here are the ones I’d avoid.

• Assuming mobile no longer matters. It matters more than ever, because Google indexes the mobile version first.
• Chasing a perfect Lighthouse score. A score of 100 is nice, but it’s a lab test on one page. I care more about whether the page works well for real visitors on real phones.
• Testing only the home page. The home page is usually the most polished. Problems tend to hide on product pages, blog posts with wide tables, and old landing pages.
• Ignoring pop-ups. Intrusive interstitials (pop-ups that cover the main content) are still part of Google’s page experience guidance. A full-screen pop-up on mobile is one of the fastest ways to annoy visitors.

Conclusion: Life After the Mobile Usability Report

Google retired the mobile usability report, the Mobile-Friendly Test and its API on 1 December 2023, but it didn’t retire mobile usability. Google still indexes your mobile pages first, and visitors still leave pages that are hard to use on a phone.

My suggestion for a next step: pick your five most important page templates this week. Run each through Lighthouse on mobile, check the URL Inspection live test screenshot, and then use the pages on a real phone. Fix what you find, and add a quick mobile check to your routine after every site update. For the full background, read Google’s April 2023 post on page experience, then work through the PageSpeed Insights report for those same templates.