Why will Google page experience become important for SEO?

Google announced in June 2021 that they will be slowly rolling out a new page experience update over the summer, which may affect your website.

 This new update is going to involve prioritising various site performance metrics when deciding what is shown in the ‘top stories’ section of search results. 

Here are the things that you’ll need to know about the page experience update and how it could impact your website. 

What is the Google page experience update?‍

The page experience update is going to be focussed on highlighting websites that offer great user experiences, and making these sites eligible to be shown in the top stories' carousel section of search results.

The update will consider new page experience signals as well as the three Core Web Vitals metrics. These metrics will include things like:

●      Page load speed

●      Mobile-friendliness

●      If your site is run on HTTPS

●      If your site is running intrusive ads

●      Does content on your website jump around the page too much

 This update should not be confused with core updates, these two things are unrelated and will not affect the other.

 The core updates will also cause your search ranking to fluctuate more than the page experience updates will.

 What is rolling out with the page experience update?

 During the June 2021 rollout of the page experience update, the following changes were seen:

●      The AMP badge will no longer be shown to indicate AMP content

●      Page experience badges will begin to be tested by Google

●      The top stories' carousel feature will be updated to include all news content, irrespective of a site’s Core Web Vitals score or page experience status

●      AMP will no longer be required for the Google News app nor news.google.com.

●      HTTPS, mobile-friendly, safe browsing and no intrusive interstitials will become part of Google’s ranking signals

When will the Google page experience update be rolled out?

Google started rolling out updates for page experience in the middle of June 2021. In their announcement, they estimated that the updates will be completed by the end of August 2021.

 Will the Google page experience update affect my ranking?‍

You shouldn’t have to worry about there being any big ranking changes after this page experience rollout - this has also been confirmed by Google. 

How can I check my site’s page experience performance?

Google has introduced a new Page Experience report within the Google Search Console which will show you how your site is performing based on the key page experience metrics.