Google tweeted that they have begun gradually rolling out the page experience update since June 15th. Remember that this update was supposed to be launched in May and had been delayed for unspecified reasons. The announcement about the update was made last November and is expected to be complete by August 2021.
What is the Page Experience Update?
The Google update contains several signals that are meant to optimize the browsing experience for users. Google assesses each signal, which serves as a metric to measure page experience and gives a website an overall ‘page experience’ score.
Here are each of the signals and the requirement for a good ‘page experience’ score:-
Core Web Vitals
As a subset of the factors of Google’s ‘page experience’ score, there are three Core Web Vitals.
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) focuses on how long a page would take to load from a user’s perspective. The time taken from clicking the link to viewing most of the content on-screen shouldn’t be more than 2.5 seconds. Anything longer is considered “poor”. Many factors like high-resolution images may contribute to longer page loading time.
FID (First Input Delay) measures page interaction, more specifically, how long it takes for the page to respond after a user chooses a menu option or enters an email in a field. It shouldn’t take longer than 300ms for something to happen on a page. Removing any non-critical third-party scripts can help improve your FID score.
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) considers visual stability, which means the time it takes for your page to stabilize all the elements as it loads. The ideal CLS score is 2.5, and a poor score would suggest that users struggle to navigate around the page.
Site owners can better understand their site’s content and how their audience responds to it on Search Console Insights.
Mobile-Friendliness
How easy is it to use and navigate your website on a mobile device? This is what mobile-friendliness is all about. They crawl each website through a mobile lens to ensure the website offers a positive mobile user experience.
HTTPS-Security
While this ranking factor is a minor one, site owners should have already moved to HTTPS and must provide a secure connection to Google. Transport Layer Security is vital to access websites safely on Google.
Security Issues
All kinds of malware, harmful downloads or deceptive pages that pose a risk to a safe browsing experience for users would result in a poor score. Google helps webmasters to resolve these issues by detecting them and recommending tailored solutions.
Pop-Up Ad Experience
Also known as intrusive interstitials, pop-up ads make it hard for users to access the information they clicked, which is why it affects the ‘page experience’ score. Pop-up advertisements are incredibly annoying for mobile users and cover almost all the content visible on their small screens.
This page experience update is currently only applicable for mobile search results, but the rollout will expand to desktops soon. If you are looking for a company specializing in digital marketing in India, Adaan Digital Solutions can help you pass Google’s page experience standards and improve your site’s user experience.
