Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst has told us Google will create a separate mobile index within the next few months and it will also become the primary Google index. When it becomes separated the desktop index will not be kept as up to date as the mobile one.
This should not come as a surprise given the not so recent changes in user behaviour - more than half of all searches come from mobile. This is in line with what Google has been building towards and from our early post this year this change in user behaviour is what Google was expecting.
Remember if a page takes more than a few seconds to load a user will visit somewhere else. Google has been working to improve the mobile user experience better by introducing Accelerated Mobile Pages thus making site speed a key ranking factor. The introduction of a mobile only ‘primary’ index gives way to many questions with little detail available at the moment.
It is important your mobile users have the most up to date information as they’re more likely to be using ‘near-me’ search queries and it’s likely the mobile index will only contain mobile friendly content.
We’ll keep you updated when we learn more.