A website displaying poorly on mobile phones generally indicates a lack of ‘responsive design’, meaning the website’s layout doesn’t automatically adjust to different screen sizes. Google Search Console, as of December 2025, provides tools to identify and address these mobile usability issues by highlighting specific page elements causing problems, and reports on Mobile-Friendly Test results.
Google Search Console operates by ‘crawling’ your website – systematically visiting each page – and analysing its code against Google’s mobile-friendliness criteria. Currently, this includes assessing viewport configuration, text size readability, and spacing around tappable elements. The Mobile-Friendly Test, accessible directly through Search Console, simulates how Google’s mobile crawler views a page and flags issues like content wider than the screen, or clickable elements too close together. Australian businesses benefit from Search Console’s regional data, showing mobile usability errors specifically impacting Australian users. In 2026, Google has announced expanded reporting to include Core Web Vitals specifically for mobile devices, providing more granular performance data. Search Console doesn’t *fix* the issues, but provides the diagnostic information needed for developers to implement responsive design techniques, such as using CSS media queries or flexible grid layouts.
Essentially, Google Search Console functions as a diagnostic tool, identifying mobile usability problems on your website based on Google’s standards and providing data to guide responsive design improvements.
