On June 15th, Google began pushing out the page experience update, stating that it would be finished by the end of August. It wasn’t finished until the end of August, and there’s still a week to go, but it’s practically done.
The announcement was made. “The deployment of the page experience is now complete, including modifications to the Top Stories mobile carousel. Google stated on Twitter that changes to the Google News app have begun to roll out and will be completed in a week or so.
The page experience update, Google’s most recent algorithm update, takes technical SEO to the next level, and from what I’ve observed, it’s causing trouble for practically everyone involved in the current web experience.
Google’s Page Experience ranking factors currently comprise four categories.
- Core Web Vitals
- Mobile-friendly
- HTTPS
- No intrusive interstitials
What Is The New Page Experience?
Google’s new recipe takes into account a number of metrics, including the Core Web Vitals metrics. These signals were created to assess the page’s experience in addition to its informational value. They assess real-world user engagement, page loading speed, and visual page stability — and businesses that don’t meet the minimum requirements will face obstacles for search rankings going forward.
As a response to websites failing to meet users’ expectations, the new page experience signals add Core Web Vitals to Google’s existing metrics — a clear warning to all to address technical flaws that affect user experience. As a result, Google has forced the growth of content management systems, SEO and web development, third-party plugins, and customer relationship management systems to greatly improve the performance of its products and services on its own.
More than a Wild Card: Core Web Vitals
At one point, the Core Web Vitals measure was widely thought to be small and insignificant. That conclusion may have been reached due to the absence of impact of earlier Page Experience variables such as HTTPS and mobile friendliness.
However, this isn’t true for the complete Page Experience ranking factors as a whole, especially the Core Web Vitals.
In a discussion on Reddit where Core Web Vitals was being dismissed as relatively inconsequential, John Mueller joined in to inform the community that the Core Web Vitals ranking factor was important and worth paying attention to.
“It is a ranking factor, and it’s more than a tie-breaker, but it also doesn’t replace relevance.
Depending on the sites you work on, you might notice it more, or you might notice it less.
As an SEO, a part of your role is to take all of the possible optimizations and figure out which ones are worth spending time on.”
In the Search Console, there’s a new Page Experience report.
The Page Experience report has been added to give you more actionable insights. This report combines the existing Core Web Vitals report with other page experience indications including HTTPS security, no intrusive interstitials, and mobile-friendliness.
The Page Experience report provides useful indicators like the percentage of URLs with a positive page experience and searches impressions over time, allowing you to assess performance rapidly. You can also look into the components of the page experience signal to learn more about areas where you can improve.
Google’s vision for page experience is to build a web ecosystem that users love—together. They have worked really hard to make sure that you have the right tools and resources available before the ranking rollout starting in mid-June 2021.
We hope the updates that we shared today will make it easier for you to build great websites.
