In the early days of internet, most of the people were using desktop and laptop computer to access web content. That is the reason why Google and other prominent search engines have also used the desktop version of websites to evaluate its relevance to the user and built their index.
However, things have changed drastically over the past few years, now more and more people are using their mobile phones to access websites. For that reason, Google has begun experimenting to make its index mobile-first.
The search index will continue to be a single index of websites and apps, but the algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site, to understand structured data, and to show snippets from those pages.
We understand this is an important shift in our indexing and it’s one we take seriously. We’ll continue to carefully experiment over the coming months on a small scale and we’ll ramp up this change when we’re confident that we have a great user experience.
What Needs To Be Done?
Websites using a responsive or dynamic layout, there is no need to change anything. However, those websites not offering a mobile-friendly version should quickly consider building a mobile version or use a responsive layout.
You can visit this page to see a few recommendations to help webmasters prepare as Google moves towards a more mobile-focused index.
