Google have announced that they are all set to roll out mobile-first indexing for its search index. By introducing mobile-first indexing, Google aims to eliminate search issues for mobile users and provide them with the mobile version of web pages.
According to Google, mobile-first indexing will have them crawl a website’s mobile website content rather than its desktop version. They also say that this move will apply to mobile responsive websites and not to desktop-only ones.
Google admitted that mobile-indexing will not affect search rankings but will only affect the content that is indexed. They also added that mobile-indexed sites will have an edge compared to their non-indexed counterparts.
Speaking about this, a spokesperson for Google, commented:
Mobile-first indexing is about how we gather content, not about how content is ranked. Content gathered by mobile-first indexing has no ranking advantage over mobile content that’s not yet gathered this way or desktop content. Moreover, if you only have desktop content, you will continue to be represented in our index.
In closing, Google added that having mobile-friendly and fast-loading content will help in having better search results as opposed to mobile-first indexing. They also say that the move will come into effect by July 2018.