Google is working on giving mobile users better & fresher content by creating a separate mobile index that will serve as the “primary” index for search in the coming months. A separate desktop index will be maintained, one that will not be as up-to-date as the mobile index. Gary Illyes, who works at Google, confirmed that the company will roll out their new mobile index in a couple of months.
.@methode: Google creating a sep mobile index, which will be it’s primary index. Desktop will be a secondary index,less up to date #Pubcon
— Lisa Barone (@LisaBarone) October 13, 2016
Mobile first index will change things since mobile sites tend to not be as large as desktop. @methode #pubcon
— Jennifer Slegg (@jenstar) October 13, 2016
Mobile index will be primary & desktop secondary-think about what are the main differences between your mobile & desktop #pubcon @methode pic.twitter.com/umwBoYA6Cx
— Eugene Feygin (@rawseo) October 13, 2016
Google will still have a desktop index, it just won't be as fresh as the mobile index. #pubcon
— Lisa Barone (@LisaBarone) October 13, 2016
Links will be scarcer on mobile. There will be loss of tokens (words). People put less content on mobile devices. #pubcon
— Lisa Barone (@LisaBarone) October 13, 2016
So, what does it mean for you?
At the moment it does not matter whether you perform a Google search from your phone or from your computer, you’ll see the same results. But in a few months this is going to change. By having a separate mobile search index, Google is able to provide fresh mobile content rather than extracting the data from desktop content. “The most considerable change will likely be that by having a mobile index, Google can run its ranking algorithm in a different manner across “pure” mobile content rather than the present system that extracts data from desktop content to determine mobile rankings,” the report says.