Reportedly, Google is planning to release a separate mobile index in a few months, aiming to provide better and fresher content to mobile users.

Google’s webmaster trends analyst Gary Illyes recently announced at Pubcon that they plan to release the new mobile search index in a few months and that the new index would be the primary one. Presently, Google has a single index of documents for search. The new index will have a considerable effect on search engine optimization strategies. 

From what we’ve heard, the desktop index Google is using now would be maintained as a secondary index but likely won’t be as up-to-date as the mobile index. The idea was first announced last year at SMX. With mobile internet users growing, it seems Google made a sound decision to move ahead with the idea of a separate mobile index. As of now, it isn’t clear how the index will work. 

There are many questions left unanswered including whether the mobile index will be used for desktop queries. The internet is already full of theories about how this is Google’s new technique to emphasize the importance of mobile-friendly content, whether the desktop index will remain outdated etc. 

One theory speculates that the new index will drive some change in Google’s ranking algorithm. Google might be able to run the algorithm in a different way to determine mobile rankings by giving importance to authentic mobile content rather than using extracted data from desktop content like it does now.

If this theory proves to be true, we can expect new or modified SEO services and strategies to pop up soon after the release of the mobile index.