So Gary Illyes from Google was at this event, which I was not at :), and he said at the event that the mobile first index might not launch in 2017. He said he hopes it does launch but he is not sure.
We do know the experiment is live but Google said it has to be quality neutral and I guess they are far off from that.
Let me share some of the tweets from the event, because I wasn't there, so it is hard to just go by one tweet:
"mobile first index will launch by end of the year" via @google's @methode #next10x pic.twitter.com/tmlaFOq62p
— Larry Kim (@larrykim) April 5, 2017
This was disputed:
@larrykim @Google @methode Nope. Listened very carefully. Said engineers hoped to launch by EOY, but he now thinks not likely.
— Mark Traphagen (@marktraphagen) April 5, 2017
But then Gary himself said it doesn't look likely that it will launch by the end of this year:
@BrentSchiffman @larrykim @Google Yeah, this sentence had a second part where I said that I don't think it will actually launch this year
— Gary Illyes ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ (@methode) April 5, 2017
"There is no timeline for the Mobile First index" - may not even launch the year. @methode at #Next10X
— Mark Traphagen (@marktraphagen) April 5, 2017
So it looks like the Google mobile first index likely won't launch in 2017, maybe it will in 2018?
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Source: Search Engine Roundtable