Google continues to improve the search results and experience for their users & webmasters and business owners we need to make sure we continue to monitor any update and algorithm change they make to ensure our business is as visible as possible for Google and other search engines.
Introducing upcoming ranking signals for Google Search based on various aspects of page experience–combining Core Web Vitals and previous UX-related signals.
Read Google’s pre-announcement
— Google Webmasters (@googlewmc) May 28, 2020
Google made the announcement on the 28th of May and provided the following information.
I would advise all webmasters to have a read through Google’s official update. Below is a summary of what to expect.
– New Algorithm Update Will Be Launched sometime in 2021.
– It will be called: Page Experience Update.
– Google will give webmasters 6 months’ notice before launching.
– Page speed and cumulative layout shift are now coming from the “Core Web Vitals”.
– Google has announced this will essentially replace AMP.
– Top story results will be a available to NON-AMP results.
– There is no indication of how vital or the weight of this ranking factor.
– Google also announced content is still more important & that you can still rank well with poor page experience but great content.
Here is a chart that Google came out with to explain what is part of this Google Page Experience update:
What is page experience?
Many of you may be wondering, what is page experience? I am going to give a brief explanation.
Page experience quite simply the experience your user has on your website. From Google’s perspective, they will be looking at that that suggests that users engage with your website and that you have a good page experience. Page experience could be any of the following factors.
– Page Speed.
– Https / Website Security.
– How well the website displays across different devices such as mobile and tablet.
– Are there intrusive ads on the page?
As well as this Google is looking to refine further factors that will add to their page experience update. Although we do not know specifics on this, it is likely to be looking at speed and usability.
What are Core Web Vitals?
As the image above shows, Core Web Vitals are a range of metrics that google uses as signals for understanding a websites page experience.
In short, the metrics are:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): how quickly a page loads. The LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds of when the page first starts loading.
First Input Delay (FID): how quickly users can interact with a page. Pages should have an FID of less than 100 milliseconds.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): the visual stability of a page (jumping buttons, etc.). Pages should maintain a CLS of less than 0.1.
There are 6 tools you can use to gauge how well your site performs against this.
• Search Console
• PageSpeed Insights
• Lighthouse
• Chrome DevTools
• Chrome UX Report
• Web Vitals Extension
Although this isn’t an algorithm you should be panicking about right now, if you’re looking to future proof your website in preparation please get in to contact today and we can discuss how we can help you increase page experience and in turn you organic traffic.
Author: Michael Ryan is the Owner of MR SEO and SEO Agency in Essex intent on providing ROI for their clients.
