Google recently announced a new ranking algorithm strictly designed to gauge the websites based on the experience users perceive while interacting with them. Google measures your Web page’s experience through a new metric system called the “Core Web Vitals”, which is an ultimate tool used by Google to judge where your web page should be ranked at. If they were ranked highly in the past, they might not be held in such high regard now; however, although this update isn’t taken into action yet, it is yet to be released this year.
Before diving into the experience update, it is vital to know how the search algorithms work. So let us talk about that first.
How do search algorithms work?
The internet has millions of available information, so it might be nearly impossible to find something specific if you are looking for something saturated. To help you with that, google ranking systems are designed for this very purpose, to help you sort through hundreds of billions of pages in Google’s index and find the most relevant result for you.
Not with one, but these ranking systems are made of a bunch of algorithms. To provide you with your desired information, the algorithms take many factors into considerations. From the words of your search to your location and settings, all these are taken into consideration to provide you with what you seek. All these factors are prioritised depending on your search’s nature. For example, if you are searching for recent news, the freshness of the content would play a significant role.
A rigorous process has been set in place by Google to ensure that the algorithms meet high standards of quality and relevance. This so-called rigorous process comprises thousands of search quality raters and live tests from around the world. The mentioned quality raters follow strict guidelines that define Google’s search algorithms goals and are available for the general public to see.
What is the Google page experience?
A detailed developer document has been presented by Google, which states the page experience’s detailed criteria. To give you a short briefing, the detailed document suggests that this metric system has a strict goal to score, which is to perceive how a user would experience from a particular webpage. It considers several things, such as the load time of the page, whether or not the page is mobile-friendly, its ability to run on HTTPS, the stability of the page and the presence of intrusive ads.
What are Core Web Vitals?
Core Web VItals include realistic and eccentric metrics that give your page a score based on its aspects, such as interactivity, load times, and overall page stability. The metrics controlling Core Web Vitals fall under these metrics:
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paints):
This metric measures the loading speeds and performance of the page. To provide an utter smooth experience, the LCP starts to take its course within 2.5 seconds when the page first loads.
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift):
This metric measures the overall stability, especially visually. For a perfect user experience, the pages should maintain a CLS of 0.1 seconds or less if possible.
- FID (First Input Display):
This metric measures interactivity. Pages should maintain an FID of less than 100 milliseconds to provide a good user experience.
What it all looks like together?
When all are put together, you get the ultimate user experience. Google sheerly highlighted that the Page experience is not just a ranking score. Instead, all elements of a page add weight to Google’s ranking algorithm.
What are all these factors?
Once you link all the above metrics, you will understand how Google documents each individual factorises within the page experience.
Preparation for this update.
This update is not airing anytime soon, as Google has promised to notify six months before the update release. Google is not known to give a heads up prior to any update, but they are so considerate solely due to the pandemic’s effect on all of us and how the majority are leading complicated lives.
By trying out the tools listed above, you can confidently prepare for this update regarding ranking changes. You can also try the new Core Web Vitals to aid you in further preparation.
How big would this update be?
For now, we do not know yet. All we know is that great content will still be the centre of attention. If your page has excellent content, but the user experience lacks, you can still rank highly in Google search.
Quality content will still be held in the highest regard.
As mentioned, your page can still rank highly if it consists of good content. To quote Google themselves, “ While all of the components of page experience are important, we will rank pages with the best information overall, even if some aspects of page experience are subpar. A good page experience doesn’t override having great, relevant content. However, in cases where there are multiple pages that have similar content, page experience becomes much more important for visibility in Search”.
Many factors are no longer the key role in ranking, AMP is one of them but if you have AMP pages on phone, they still might rank. AMP would now have to compete with other pages for the top stories section in google.
Conclusive thoughts.
The purpose of writing this blog is to guide our audience to prepare for this update. Assykay is the best in the business when it comes to web design and hosting. But these are not the service that we offer; SEO services are also our main domain. You can always contact us via phone or email or simply visiting our website would give you a general overview. With that being said, stay safe during this pandemic and focus on this upcoming update.