{"id":142474,"date":"2020-12-01T18:12:07","date_gmt":"2020-12-01T18:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.searchenginewatch.com\/?p=142474"},"modified":"2020-12-01T18:12:07","modified_gmt":"2020-12-01T18:12:07","slug":"the-google-page-experience-what-you-need-to-know-and-five-steps-for-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2020\/12\/01\/the-google-page-experience-what-you-need-to-know-and-five-steps-for-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"The Google page experience: What you need to know and five steps to prepare for 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"well\">\n<h3>30-second summary:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google page experience metric goes live in 2021.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rewarding pages that offer a better user experience.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The signal measures a site&#8217;s performance, security, and mobile-friendliness.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To prepare for 2021, get a fast web hosting service, optimize your content for mobile users, and install security measures (firewall, SSL, etc.).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Avoid pop-ups and whole screen banners that restrict the visitors\u2019 access to content.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The newest search ranking benchmark that\u2019s cooking in Google\u2019s development lab is the Google page experience metric.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In short, this upcoming metric aims to measure (and rank) the overall responsiveness and user experience of websites that show up in Google\u2019s search results.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google plans to introduce this metric alongside the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2017\/10\/27\/an-in-depth-guide-to-google-ranking-factors\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">current ranking factors<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. However, there isn\u2019t an exact date announced when this metric goes live.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As Google\u2019s developers <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/webmasters.googleblog.com\/2020\/05\/evaluating-page-experience.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">officially state<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in their blog:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe ranking changes [Google page experience] described in this post will not happen before next year [2021], and we will provide at least six months notice before they\u2019re rolled out.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You still have plenty of time to react. However, we suggest planning ahead and implementing some of the best practices as soon as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let\u2019s take a look at what you can expect from this ranking update and how you can prepare your site from the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Elements of the Google page experience metric<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google is mainly building the new metric upon the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.chromium.org\/2020\/05\/introducing-web-vitals-essential-metrics.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Core Web Vitals<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that their Chrome team launched earlier this year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The overall goal with <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google\u2019s page experience <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/docs\/guides\/page-experience\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">metric<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is to ensure the Google Search users are getting a mobile-friendly, safe, and straightforward browsing experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let\u2019s look at each element that contributes to the page experience metric.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>1. Core Web Vitals<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google developed the Core Web Vitals because the average user enjoys fast and seamless web surfing. They also created a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/web\/tools\/chrome-user-experience-report\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Chrome User Experience Report<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which you can use to evaluate your site\u2019s current performance according to these signals.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-142477\" src=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Google-page-experience-metrics.png\" alt=\"Google page experience metrics\" width=\"512\" height=\"152\" srcset=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Google-page-experience-metrics.png 512w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Google-page-experience-metrics-300x89.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.chromium.org\/2020\/05\/introducing-web-vitals-essential-metrics.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Source<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Core Web Vitals consist of three separate signals:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Largest Contentful Paint<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (LCP) &#8211; quickness of the largest content piece\u2019s loading time.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First Input Delay<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (FID) &#8211; responsiveness to the user\u2019s clicking, scrolling, and typing.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cumulative Layout Shift<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (CLS) &#8211; visual stability of the page.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To tick a box in each of these signals, your pages\u2019 LCP should be below 2.5 seconds, FID below 100ms and the CLS score less than 0.1.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>2. Mobile-friendly site<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google already favors sites that are optimized for mobile users, and rightfully so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Research conducted by <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.statista.com\/statistics\/330695\/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Statista<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> reveals that there are an estimated 3.5 billion smartphone users this year, with this number growing to 3.8 billion in 2021. It\u2019s safe to say that sites that aren\u2019t mobile-optimized will miss a lot of traffic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Therefore, it makes sense that Google only wants their search to display mobile-friendly sites.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>3. Safe-browsing<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google puts a lot of emphasis on security and weeding out potentially harmful sites from their search results. After all, if the top search results harm users, it won\u2019t look good on Google at all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the signals with the upcoming page experience metric concludes if the indexed site contains any malicious or deceptive content. Some straightforward examples are malware, spyware, social engineering scams, and false information.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To get a sense of how this works, check out <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/search.google.com\/search-console\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google\u2019s Security Issues report<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. You can also scan your website to see if any issues pop up at this time.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>4. HTTPS<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Following the security topic, Google also prefers secure sites with a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate. Visibly, the difference is between <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">http:\/\/<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">https:\/\/<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (where the latter is SSL secured) in the website\u2019s URL.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The SSL certificate\u2019s job is to encrypt any data that travels between the user and the servers. Even if a cyber attack occurs, the hackers are unlikely to make sense of the data.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you\u2019ve used the Chrome browser, then you might have come across a security warning with a suggestion that the connection is not secure. This is mainly due to the site missing an SSL certificate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-142478\" src=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/HTTPS-Google-page-experience.png\" alt=\"HTTPS - Google page experience\" width=\"512\" height=\"139\" srcset=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/HTTPS-Google-page-experience.png 512w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/HTTPS-Google-page-experience-300x81.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/chrome\/answer\/95617\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<h3>5. No intrusive interstitials<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last but not least, Google aims to punish sites that aggressively keep the visitors away from quickly accessing the content they are looking for in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The main culprits here are the pop-ups that cover the entire screen, are difficult to dismiss, or keep popping up while consuming the content.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, disclaimers, cookie usage information, age-sensitive content confirmations, login dialogs, and reasonably sized banners aren\u2019t going to affect your ranking.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-142476\" src=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Google-page-experience-Remove-interstitials.png\" alt=\"Google page experience - Remove interstitials\" width=\"512\" height=\"374\" srcset=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Google-page-experience-Remove-interstitials.png 512w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Google-page-experience-Remove-interstitials-300x219.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/webmasters.googleblog.com\/2016\/08\/helping-users-easily-access-content-on.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Source<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Five steps to optimize your site for 2021<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google\u2019s new page experience metric isn\u2019t going to substitute the current ranking elements. It becomes an additional ranking factor, but the most essential part from an SEO perspective is still the quality of the content.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Still, since the page experience metric IS going to affect the ranking results, it\u2019s a great idea to know what you can do to prepare.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here are a few steps you can take to get your site ready for 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>1. Get an excellent web hosting service<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your site\u2019s performance is already one of the key ranking factors today. Either you have a server in-house or using a hosting service, it\u2019s wise to make sure your site is fast and responsive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can analyze your site\u2019s responsiveness with Google\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/speed\/pagespeed\/insights\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">PageSpeed Insights<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> tool or use a website performance monitoring tool such as <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pingdom<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Additionally, you can check out sites that gather and share <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">performance data<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on web hosting providers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-142475\" src=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Example-website-performance-data-1024x338.png\" alt=\"Example website performance data\" width=\"640\" height=\"211\" srcset=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Example-website-performance-data-1024x338.png 1024w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Example-website-performance-data-300x99.png 300w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Example-website-performance-data-768x253.png 768w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Example-website-performance-data-1536x507.png 1536w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Example-website-performance-data.png 728w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hostingfacts.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Source<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<h3>2. Keep your page\u2019s size lite<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Images go hand-in-hand with today\u2019s websites. However, overstuffing your web pages with visual content is going to make your site slow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are a few ways to approach this problem, depending on the nature of your site.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can optimize your images and make them <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">weigh<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> less by using an image compressor such as <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ImageOptim<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. If your page is already content-heavy, consider spreading the largest items to multiple pages within your site.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alternatively, you can use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) such as <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cloudflare.com\/en-gb\/learning\/cdn\/what-is-a-cdn\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CloudFlare<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to cache your content closer to the visitor\u2019s access point.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>3. Optimize your site for mobile<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As we proved earlier, the world is heading rapidly to mobile. It\u2019s not enough for your users to access your content with their smartphones; they also expect your site to adjust to the smaller screens.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Therefore, your site needs to be mobile-optimized.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The good news is that most modern website creation platforms, such as WordPress, already have <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.org\/themes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">mobile-friendly templates<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that don\u2019t require extra coding efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can quickly test if your site is mobile-responsive by using <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/search.google.com\/test\/mobile-friendly\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google\u2019s Mobile-Friendly testing tool<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>4. Install security measures<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Website security definitely deserves a separate article to cover all the bases, but let\u2019s only focus on Google\u2019s perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First, don\u2019t knowingly add any malicious scripts or deceptive content to your website.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Secondly, protect your site from malware and other hacking attempts by adding a firewall. While it\u2019s not clear yet if Google will check your site for a firewall, you should have one in place either way.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And finally, install an SSL certificate that encrypts your data since Google is already keeping tabs on if a site is secure or not. However, most of the modern hosting services already include an SSL certificate with their plans.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Overall, investing in website security is worth it for peace of mind and from the SEO perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>5. Tone down or remove large pop-up banners<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google considers anything that keeps its users from accessing the content they search for as a nuisance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Therefore, a piece of straightforward advice &#8211; don\u2019t put a giant banner on your site. Make the promotion more subtle, and you won\u2019t have any problems with Google.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a reminder, cookie information, age-restriction policies, and login dialogs are the exceptions. Although, please don\u2019t go overboard with these either for the sake of user experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-142479\" src=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Google-page-experience-Remove-large-pop-up-banners.png\" alt=\"Google page experience - Remove large pop up banners\" width=\"512\" height=\"339\" srcset=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Google-page-experience-Remove-large-pop-up-banners.png 512w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Google-page-experience-Remove-large-pop-up-banners-300x199.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/webmasters.googleblog.com\/2016\/08\/helping-users-easily-access-content-on.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Source<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>In conclusion<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google\u2019s page experience metric will become one of the search ranking signals in 2021, but there isn\u2019t an exact launch date yet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Still, you can start preparing your site for the upcoming changes. Even if it\u2019s unclear how much weight this new metric has on the search results, offering your visitors a great user experience is a substantial value on its own.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Start by testing your site\u2019s performance, security, and mobile-friendliness. The results give you a pretty good idea of what to tweak and add to your site.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, remember that the most important ranking factor is still the quality of the content. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gert Svaiko is a professional copywriter and mainly works with digital marketing companies in the US and EU. You can reach him on <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/gert-svaiko\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">LinkedIn<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Page experience metric is going to be a new addition to Google\u2019s ranking factors in 2021. Here\u2019s how to prepare for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1092,"featured_media":142480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[27952,369,37,27994,659,482,27692,391,1126,22,579,32,419,727,27954,297,280],"content_type":[],"class_list":["post-142474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo","tag-core-web-vitals","tag-evergreen-content","tag-google","tag-google-page-experience","tag-google-ranking-signals","tag-google-updates","tag-https-certificate","tag-mobile-optimization","tag-quality-content","tag-seo","tag-seo-trends","tag-serps","tag-ssl-certificate","tag-user-experience-ux","tag-website-performance","tag-website-security","tag-website-speed"],"acf":{"tad_independentcommercial":false,"tad_content_format":false},"post_info":{"name":"idris.nagri@blenheimchalcot.com idris.nagri@blenheimchalcot.com","title":"","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/The-Google-page-experience-What-you-need-to-know-and-five-steps-to-prepare-for-2021.png","category":"SEO","timeago":"5y"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1092"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142474"},{"taxonomy":"content_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content_type?post=142474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}