Mobile

Mobile

The Mobile tab includes data from Lighthouse via the PageSpeed Insights API, or running Lighthouse locally.

To audit mobile usability issues, then PSI must be connected via ‘Configuration > API Access > PageSpeed Insights’ and ‘Mobile Friendly’ metrics selected under the ‘Metrics’ tab.

The ‘Source’ can be set as either ‘Remote’ or ‘Local’. Remote means the data is collected via the PageSpeed Insights API, which requires a free PageSpeed API key. If ‘Local’ is selected, then Lighthouse will be run locally on the machine in headless Chrome.

With either option selected and PSI connected, data will then start to be populated against crawled URLs.

Please read our PageSpeed Insights integration guide on how to set up a free API and configure the SEO Spider.

Columns

This tab includes the following columns.

• Address – The URL crawled.
• PSI Status – Either a ‘success’ retrieving data, or an ‘error’.
• PSI Error – If there is an error, the error response.
• Viewport – The Lighthouse performance score out of 100 for this audit.
• Tap Targets – The Lighthouse performance score out of 100 for this audit.
• Content Width – The Lighthouse performance score out of 100 for this audit.
• Font Display – The Lighthouse performance score out of 100 for this audit.
• Plugins – The Lighthouse performance score out of 100 for this audit.
• Mobile Alternate Link – Any desktop URLs that contain a rel=”alternate” link element to a mobile version.

Filters

This tab includes the following filters.

• Viewport Not Set – Pages without a viewport meta tag, or a viewport meta tag without a content attribute that includes the text width=. Setting the viewport meta tag allows the width and scaling to be sized correctly on all devices. Without this set, mobile devices will render pages at desktop screen widths and scale them down, making the text difficult to read.
• Target Size – Pages with tap targets that are too small or there is not enough space around them, which means they are difficult to interact with on mobile devices. Tap targets (also known as ‘touch targets’) are buttons, links or form elements that users on touch devices can use. Insufficient size or spacing can also make it challenging for users with mobility impairments, or anyone experiencing difficulties controlling fine movement. Tap targets must be at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels in size.
• Content Not Sized Correctly – Pages with content that is smaller or larger than the viewport width, which means it may not render correctly on mobile devices. Lighthouse flags pages whose width isn’t equal to the width of the viewport. This is only available in ‘Local’ Lighthouse, it is no longer available via the ‘Remote’ PSI API as it has been deprecated.
• Illegible Font Size – Pages with small font sizes that can make it difficult to read for users on mobile devices. Lighthouse will flag pages that have font sizes smaller than 12px, which make up more than 40% of the page text.
• Unsupported Plugins – Pages with browser plugins such as Flash, Silverlight, or Java Applets that most mobile devices and browsers do not support and search engines cannot index.
• Mobile Alternate Link – Pages that contain a rel=”alternate” link element to a mobile version. While this is an acceptable set up, it means serving different HTML to each device on separate URLs. This can often be less efficient than a responsive design approach.

Bulk exports of mobile issues including granular details from Lighthouse are available under the ‘Reports’ menu

PageSpeed Insights API Status & Errors

The PSI Status column shows whether an API request for a URL has been a ‘success’ and shows data, or there has been an error and no data is displayed. An ‘error’ usually reflects the web interface, where you would see the same error and message.

The ‘PSI Error’ column displays the full message received from the PSI API to provide more information about the cause. Some errors are due to the Lighthouse audit itself failing, other errors can be due to the PSI API being unavailable when the request is made.

Please read our FAQ on PageSpeed Insights API Errors for more information.