Android 6 “Marshmallow” & SEO Series: Google’s Private Index & Screen Crawling

As over-the-air updates for Android 6, also called Android Marshmallow, start slowly rolling out to some Nexus devices, many SEOs are wondering how this well-publicized update will impact mobile user behavior and search. This is especially true because Google’s enhanced predictive search utility, Now on Tap, will be deeply integrated in the browser and OS.

Having received the update, I can tell you that so far, it has not lived up to the hype; but that does not mean that it will not have a huge impact on the direction and future of mobile search.

To predict the impact of more integrated predictive search, we can start by looking at the mobile Chrome, search and Google Now updates that were made before the soft launch of Android Marshmallow (since they all appeared to be in preparation for the more comprehensive Android Marshmallow launch) and compare them to the post-launch reality.

In the past six months, there have been a large number of subtle and not-so-subtle changes, and this three-part series will review some of those changes and their implications on mobile SEO strategy. While app deep linking and indexing are very important parts of the update, these articles will focus on the more web-based changes.

The three topics covered in this series will be Google’s Private Index, sponsored Google Now cards, and the “Click-to-Search” mobile search behavior and results.

[Read the full article at Search Engine Land.]