One of the more confusing things around the mobile first index is will page speed be a factor or not when it launches. Google has said no, it won't be and then they said yes it will be.
It seems like Google is reworking how their measure page speed. Right now, as we have reported numerous times, page speed is measured of desktop speed and not mobile.
Google's Gary Illyes said they are reworking the algorithm to look at mobile page speed, because mobile page speed is what is important. Desktop page speed is way less important than mobile page speed he said.
Gary went on to explain that Google will be "loud" about mobile page speed before the mobile-first index launch in 2018. So we will be well-prepared for this new mobile page speed score when it comes out.
None of this is really new, Google has implied since before the mobile-first index that page speed needs to measure mobile page speed and not desktop. So Google is indeed working on this.
Here are tweets from the session:
Google is rewriting page speed as ranking factor for mobile speed. @methode #smx
— Jennifer Slegg (@jenstar) June 13, 2017
Google is going to be "loud" about page speed because they want people to speed up their sites@methode #smx #11a
— Greg Gifford (@GregGifford) June 13, 2017
Google will be loud about the upcoming mobile page speed thing... so expect more info about it when its going live. @methode #smx
— Jennifer Slegg (@jenstar) June 13, 2017
We do have a ranking component that looks at desktop page speed. We don't care about that, we care about mobile. @methode #smx
— Patrick Stox (@patrickstox) June 13, 2017
Google doesn't care much about page speed anymore...unless it's mobile page speed. @methode #smx
— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) June 13, 2017
Forum discussion at Twitter.
