There are new details about Google Mobile-First Index
At the conference SMX Advanced Google spokesman Gary Illyes shared new details about the launch of a mobile-first index.
According to him, the transition to new types of indexing will take place when Google will be sure that this will not affect the quality of search results. The company want to keep it at the same level or improve, but not worsen. Illyes added that quality neutral not easy to achieve.
Jennifer Slegg:
Google is aiming for quality neutral launch with mobile first. They don't want to see user's results be less quality.
The exact launch date has not been set. It is expected that this will happen before the end of 2017. In the near future, the launch is not planned.
Google confirms they are still working on a mobile 1st index. Rollout between June & end of year depending on ongoing experiments. #smx
— Dustin Woodard (@webconnoisseur) 22 Mar 2017
Kristine Schachinger:
Still experimenting. No set timeline, but definitely more than a few weeks
At the stage of preparation for this change, it is very important to copy the content that you want to rank, from a desktop website to mobile.
Kristine Schachinger:
Very important! Copy over content you want to rank for to mobile site (from Desktop)
In the transition to mobile-first indexing, the concept of the page speed will be rethinking, but how exactly not said.
Kristine Schachinger:
Google hasv to reinvent the concept of page speed when going to mobile first indexing.
In addition, after the launch of the new index will increase the role of the site map.
Kristine Schachinger:
Links are the main source of discovery currently. Hard on mobile. Sitemaps will become more important.
Google began testing mobile-first index in November 2016. This means that in the near future, search algorithms will be primarily to evaluate the relevance of the mobile version of the page, and in its absence – the desktop.
At least at first, Google will not measure the speed of loading the mobile pages and to take that factor into consideration in ranking.
If the site may have problems after switching to a new type of indexing, Google will warn about it by Search Console.
The FAQs on this change can be found here.
