Are you ready for Google’s big move to mobile-first index?

Considering the ever multiplying smartphone usage, many online portals have already adapted to the mobile-first strategy. However, to those who are yet to make the transformation, its perhaps time now as Google is planning to prioritize mobile content in its search results.

The mobile-first index will primarily look at the mobile version of online portals for its ranking signals. This obviously means that the ones that don't have functional mobile versions will likely lose out on the page views.

Google product manager Doantam Phan said, "Although our search index will continue to be a single index of websites and apps, our 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 in our results."

In the initial index, Google bots would track over 60 trillion web pages and the links in them. After categorizing the links into a massive index based on hundreds of different factors, Google search would display the most relevant sites to your queries.

However, with the new update, which is currently in its testing phase, Google will determine the rankings of pages based on their mobile content. Though Google has reported in past that it was creating an entirely separate mobile index, the company has modified its plans.

Phan also said that the new update will take some time to be fully implemented in the system.

Though, it’s a bad news for desktop-oriented sites, its good news for those with a mobile version site.

Google also has some suggestions for websites to prepare for the transition. You can read them here.