{"id":206343,"date":"2021-09-07T07:59:45","date_gmt":"2021-09-06T23:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seo-hacker.com\/?p=206343"},"modified":"2023-06-30T17:17:04","modified_gmt":"2023-06-30T09:17:04","slug":"google-page-experience-update-complete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seo-hacker.com\/google-page-experience-update-complete\/","title":{"rendered":"Page Experience Update Complete: What you Need to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Page<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

After two months of waiting, Google finally announced that the Page Experience Update rollout is now complete. The gradual rollout started on June 15, 2021, and was supposed to be finished by the end of August 2021 but was delayed for a few days.<\/span><\/p>\n

The announcement was made on the official Google Search Central Twitter account. Google said that Page Experience is now live for both search and Top Stories mobile carousel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\"announcement<\/span><\/p>\n

An email was also sent out informing webmasters about the expansion of non-AMP web content in Google News. This means that AMP pages are not required anymore to appear in Google News. This change will be completed \u201cin a week or so\u201d according to Google.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"expansion<\/span><\/p>\n

Assessing the impact of Page Experience<\/span><\/h2>\n

\"The<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been closely monitoring the search volatility since the update started rolling out in June and I didn\u2019t find any clear signs that Page Experience caused volatility in search. There were some fluctuations during this time but I would say they were more attributed to the <\/span>June 2021 broad core algorithm update<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>July 2021 broad core algorithm update<\/span><\/a>, and the <\/span>Search Spam Algorithm update<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

While some braced for its impact, many believed it will not give major ranking advantages. In a <\/span>Twitter thread last March<\/span><\/a>, Martin Splitt said that the Core Web Vitals, signals included in Page Experience, may only give a \u201ctiny advantage\u201d.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Martin<\/span><\/p>\n

This may be true considering the Core Web Vitals are only a part of the whole update. It was also communicated <\/span>by John Mueller in a Reddit thread<\/span><\/a> that Page Experience is not as important as relevancy in search but it is also <\/span>more than a tie-breaker<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

According to John Mueller:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span><\/i>It is a ranking factor, and it’s more than a tie-breaker, but it also doesn’t replace relevance.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

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. Any SEO tool will spit out 10s or 100s of “recommendations”, most of those are going to be irrelevant to your site’s visibility in search. Finding the items that make sense to work on takes experience.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The other thing to keep in mind with core web vitals is that it’s more than a random ranking factor, it’s also something that affects your site’s usability after it ranks (when people actually visit). If you get more traffic (from other SEO efforts) and your conversion rate is low, that traffic is not going to be as useful as when you have a higher conversion rate (assuming UX\/speed affects your conversion rate, which it usually does). CWV is a great way of recognizing and quantifying common user annoyances.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

So, what now?<\/span><\/h3>\n

Personally, I think that having good Page Experience scores is great but at the end of the day, it\u2019s just a part of a larger pie of Google\u2019s algorithm. I believe that it goes hand in hand with other signals and SEOs shouldn\u2019t expect huge ranking leaps after improving Page Experience scores.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is backed up more by SEMRush\u2019s study: 2021 Core Web Vitals Update: <\/span>Assessing the Initial Impact<\/span><\/a>. According to their findings, they observed that websites they analyzed had an overall increase in Page Experience scores for both mobile and desktop. However, they didn\u2019t see any significant difference in organic search before and after the update started rolling out. I highly recommend that you read this study.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

How to optimize for Google\u2019s Page Experience Update<\/span><\/h2>\n

Google gave ample time to SEOs and website owners to start <\/span>optimizing for Page Experience<\/span><\/a> before it was rolled out as a ranking factor but many still haven\u2019t fully grasped the concept thus, unable to optimize their websites for it. If you\u2019re still a bit lost on where to start optimizing your website for this update, I\u2019ve listed here some resources on each of the factors under the Page Experience update to get you going.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Core Web Vitals<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n