On average google handles around 115 billion search queries per month. So it is only usual for Google to update periodically to retain these users. So there is a new Google algorithm update that has been announced, which is the much-awaited google page experience update. For the desktops, the page experience update is now done rolling out. In the month of February, 22nd the update was initiated and Bam nine days later the update is fully rolled out now.
Page experience
Before knowing more about this update let’s learn about what page experience is. Page experience is nothing but a set of signals that helps to measure how the web user comprehends the experience or the feel of interacting with the website transcends the plain information value. This includes the Core vitals. Core vitals are nothing but a metric. This metric is used in measuring the actual user experience for the following elements:
- visual stability of the page
- loading performance
- Interactivity
And it also consists of existing Search signals,
Page experience signals
The signals that are mentioned below are very important for delivering a great page experience in google search. And Google usually updates this page experience signals on a yearly basis
Core Web Vitals- The factors that are focused to provide a good user experience are interactivity, visual stability, and loading.
| 1 | First Input Delay (FID) | This metric helps to measure interactivity. And for a good page experience, it is good to have 100 milliseconds as the maximum FID. |
| 2 | Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | This particular metric is used to measure the visual stability of a site. And for a great page experience, it is good to have the CLS score under 0.1. |
| 3 | Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | This specific metric is used to measure the loading performance of a site. And for a great page experience, it is advised to have the LCP be occurring within the first 2.5 seconds from the time the page has started to load. |
HTTPS- Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure is nothing but a security protocol. Thus the website is expected to be served over HTTPS. You can also go ahead and check whether your site’s connenction is secured or not. And if your site’s connection is not secured then you can learn how to secure the website’s connection with HTTPS.
No intrusive interstitials- This signal is all about accessibility, whether or not the users can easily access your content displayed on the web page. Many web pages have begun to display intrusive interstitials to their website visitors. The content of the page is visually hidden by these elements even though there is content in the webpage that could be indexed by Google. This activity tends to be unpleasant for most users as they can not reach the targeted information that they expected to reach when they clicked the web page’s link.
Thus web pages that do not display an intrusive interstitial provides a better user experience than a web page that displays intrusive interstitials because of the faster access to the content. This affects mobile users more than desktop users.
Things that make the content less accessible are:
- Display of pop-up right after a user’s entry to your website or while scrolling down your website.
- Showing some stand-alone interstitials that the user might have already denied before accessing the web page’s content.
Mobile-Friendly- The web page should be mobile-friendly. And there are numerous tests available online to check whether your site is mobile-friendly or not.
And obviously, this signal will not affect the desktop ranting if the website has a different link for mobiles and desktops.
Page experience for Desktops:
So now Google has said to use page experience as a portion of desktop ranking systems. This launch of page experience being a part of a desktop ranking system is said to be very similar to the already launched page experience signals for mobile. And Google has also stated that they are going to help the owners of the website to have a broader insight on how their webpages are performing on desktops. Especially with regards to the page experience with the help of a report from the search console. This report has been launched before desktop became a ranking signal. You can also take a look at the report.
Factors of page experience that remains the same:
So this also means that for the desktop ranking the same Core Web Vitals metrics and their associated thresholds will be applied. The Core web vitals metrics are:
Other factors of page experience signals like the absence of intrusive interstitials and HTTPS security seem to have no changes thus they also remain the same.
Factors of page experience that seems to have changed:
For obvious reasons, the mobile-friendliness signal still continues to only be a part of mobile ranking and not an aspect of desktop ranking. When a website has two different URLs one for the desktop and one for mobile with appropriate configuration then the desktop signals are totally based on the URLs that are accessed by the desktop users
Source: developers.google.com
Why is page ranking dependent on the page experience?
The ranking signals, page experience was completely rolled out for mobile devices in August 2021. And now the new update states that the page experience is also a part of the desktop ranking system from March 2022.
Definitely, a user’s experience with a web page is important, Google still tries to rank web pages with the finest information on the whole, even if it has a mediocre page experience. Just because a web page delivers a great page experience, it does not mean that the page is better than a page with great content. But if Google has to choose between two pages with really great content that’s where page experience comes into play. A page with great content and a better page experience will have great visibility in search.
No drastic change is expected:
So on the whole this update might not bring out any drastic changes in your ranking. As the user experience has always been an important part of a web page that should be taken care of. And the major content of the web page also still matters a lot.
Points to be taken care of for optimizing the page experience:
- The resources mentioned below will help you to monitor, optimize and measure your web page.
- The tools that can help you with the core web vitals. The tools will help you to measure the CLS, LCP, and FID.
- Make sure your site is secure. If not, try to make your site’s connection secure.
- Make sure your web page does not display many interstitials as it creates an unpleasant experience for the users because of the restricted access to the page’s content.
- Review Google’s FAQs for page experience and the core web vitals.
- Google offers amazing podcast episodes about the core web vitals you can also check them out.
- AMP might be a great help to optimize your site’s page experience.
If all these HTTPS, CLS, AMP, LCP still sound like Greek and Latin to you then let Cuneiform help you figure this out for you. We can help you out with the search engine optimization and ranking of your website. You can have a look at our SEO services as well. And feel free to GIT with us.
