[Solved] Page is Not Mobile Friendly – Google Search Console WordPress Error

Looking for a fix for “Page is Not Mobile Friendly” issue?

I have been there!

Recently for one of my WordPress websites, google search console was showing errors for a few pages. Error is “Page is Not Mobile Friendly”.

Google doesn’t like websites which is not mobile-friendly considering the fact that many users use mobile to browse websites.

So it is must to have mobile optimised website pages for your blogs and websites.

Page is Not Mobile Friendly Errors For WordPress

When I tested individual pages for errors in the google search consol, It looks like the required javascript, CSS and few image resources were not getting loaded when the google mobile bot is trying to fetch the page.

It could happen due to variety of reasons.

Troubleshooting “Page is Not Mobile Friendly” Errors

I troubleshooted this issue in the following ways.

1. Tested the live page using google mobile bots live test tool. Something weird happened. A couple of times it showed the page is mobile-friendly and a few times it didn’t.
2. Then I checked my WordPress caching settings. I could not find anything.
3. Next, I check Cloudflare CDN settings. There it looked alright as only a few pages were getting this error.
4. Then I deactivated few plugins and tested again. No luck.
5. Checked the robots.txt file for any blocked resources. There are no rules blocking google user agents.

Then I figured that some mess up is happening the way the static website resources are served.

So I thought of removing the free caching plugin and use a premium cache plugin which can optimize all the static resources.

How I Fixed Resource Load Issue

As a trial and error method, I tried WP Rocket caching plugin. I already use it for my blogs for better caching. I have written my experiences in a detailed WP rocket review

I installed the plugin and configured all caching settings for static resources. Mostly static resource modification & combined static resource delivery,

Get the plugin: WP Rocket WordPress Caching Plugin

Note: WP rocket solved my issues. There is no guarantee that it will solve yours. However, you can try this plugin and if it doesn’t work you can get a full refund from them.

After WP Rocket configurations, when I tested error pages, google bot was able to render it correctly without any errors. You can see the “page is mobile-friendly” message in the following image.

It turns out the static resource delivery by the free caching plugin was not working properly.

In addition to resolving the resource load error, my mobile page speed has increased drastically to 87 grade.

If you have a strict robots.txt file and you are facing this issue for all pages in your webiste, you can try adding the following to robots.txt file.

Allow: /wp-content/plugins/*.js
Allow: /wp-content/cache/*.js
Allow: /wp-content/cache/*.css
Allow: /wp-includes/*.js
Allow: /wp-includes/*.png

Conclusion

Not everyone will opt for the premium plugin to fix static file issues.

But will end up paying a hefty price by losing traffic from google as mobile page optimization is highly recommended by Google.

I try to focus on my work rather than wasting time fixing technical issues. So I always go for a premium plugin to get the proper support.

If I don’t do that, I will end up paying the price one or the other way.

Keep an eye on google search console errors and notifications. Fix it as soon as possible to avoid losing google search engine traffic.