What is all the fuzz about Mobile First Index by Google?

In the Beginning of Nov, Google announced it is gonna experiment with mobile first indexing model. From then till now there are debates going on regarding how it will affect SEO.

Some say “If you don’t have a mobile-friendly site, you are screwed”.
Some say “it doesn’t change anything on the results, so don’t worry”.

So what it mobile first indexing really about? let me try to put things in simple perspective.

mobile first indexing by google

Why was this required?

So far, google maintained the index with desktop pages. This means even if you have a mobile site with slightly modified content, google indexed the desktop page and served the same in search results.
Because of this, users may see one snippet on search results and see totally something else on the mobile page. This happens because google was not “storing” the mobile page but considering only the mobile-friendliness (and other elements) of the mobile pages.

Now that, mobile searches are surging, google cannot afford to stick to just desktop pages. Thus mobile first indexing comes to picture.

Does this impact sites with no mobile version?

No, If you don’t have a mobile site, it doesn’t mean your site won’t rank. But of course, it is preferred to have a mobile compatible site. The desktop sites will be still crawled and indexed even if the mobile site is not available. In google’s words,

“If you are building a mobile version of your site, keep in mind that a functional desktop-oriented site can be better than a broken or incomplete mobile version of the site.”

So don’t panic.

So there is no change after all?

Ummm well, there are few.

1. It’s is gonna be mobile first index. So, make sure mobile version of the site is proper in terms of content.
2. If your site is “responsive” or “dynamic serving” or even if don’t have a mobile site nothing gonna change for you much. But if you have two different sites for mobile & desktop, then you need some work to do.
   2.1 Make sure the mobile content is really better. Beacuse, you may lose the advantage you had because of “desktop site has more content”.
   2.2 Make sure same rich snippets/schemas implemented on both versions of the sites.
3. Google will be giving little extra weight to the expandable/tabbed content (compared to the same on desktop site) as long as it is in favor of user experience.

So, don’t bother about the mobile first indexing changes as long as you are maintaining the content in a better way on both versions of the site.