Google began its mobile-first index test last November, saying that mobile searches matter more than desktop searches these days. People use their mobile phones to access websites, and with the desktop version being displayed on mobile screens, there are some changes needed.
This Google’s mobile first index aims at fixing websites that allocate different content on a desktop and a mobile. Some websites might have placed a more in-depth or detailed content on a desktop than on a mobile.
To address the issue, as reported by Search Engine Land, Google is looking into the content, links, and data if a mobile site version is available for a web page. Web sites with different content on both the two types of a web page would be impacted the most and would be subjected to change.
The project is to make sure users will be directed to sites they had searched for. Marketers, Webmasters and SEO professionals should prepare to optimize their sites in line with this project.
According to Entrepreneur, the mobile index will affect SEO campaigns in a way that web pages would need to test their site first on a mobile interface. If it fails on loading or it loads really slow, it would affect the webpage’s SEO ranking. This site speed speculation was contradicted by Google Webmaster Trends analyst, John Mueller.
"I don't think we can do that from the beginning," Mueller stated via Media Post. “In the same way we use speed for desktop [indexing and ranking], I don’t see us doing that in the beginning. It's something we would like to do in the long run."
More so, Sound Table reported that Google Mobile Index is not yet live, so webmasters won’t have to worry about not yet preparing for the big change. Google's Kazushi Nagayama from the Japan office, posted on Twitter.
@KazushiNagayama we're missing the memos like a boss ¯_(ツ)_/¯
— Gary Illyes ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ (@methode) December 27, 2016
