Google Search is responsible for a huge amount of web traffic. Anyone that runs a website knows how important it is to rank highly on Google. So it’s always a very big deal when the company changes the way it ranks websites. Today, Google announced a new ranking algorithm that will start taking “page experience” into consideration (via Search Engine Land).
“Page experience” is all about how users perceive the experience of interacting with a webpage. Simply put, if Google thinks people don’t enjoy using a website, it will not rank it as highly in Search results. There are a number of metrics and considerations used to understand how a user perceives the experience.
Some of these considerations include page loading speed, interactivity, and the stability of content as it loads. Google calls these things “Core Web Vitals.” In addition, Google is using some existing signals, including mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS, and intrusive ads. All of these things together make up the “page experience” secret sauce.
