Google Core Vitals Update

This update, which began in June 2021, is expected to conclude by the end of August. Before you panic about how this will affect your business’s website, let’s examine what exactly this update is doing, what is going to change, and what you need to do to maintain your rankings. Don’t worry – you’ve got this! Here’s what we’ve been hearing from our clients and how we’ve been responding:

“Tell me about the new Google Core Web Vitals update.”

“Tell me more about Google’s page experience signals.”

“Tell me how my website will be affected.”

“Tell me how Core Web Vitals are scored.”

“Tell me more about site speed.”

“Tell me how to prepare for Core Web Vitals.”

Google is in the process of implementing a search update that integrates page experience metrics in its ranking algorithm. Page experience looks at how users on a website “perceive the experience of interacting with a web page beyond its pure information value.” That basically means this update isn’t related to the actual content on a webpage but instead measures the results of a set of specific signals that include:

• Core Web Vitals, or how (and fast) your website loads;
• Mobile-friendliness, a measure of whether your website performs well when accessed from a phone;
• Safe browsing, including whether your site serves malware- and virus-free content;
• HTTPS security, or what is considered a “safe” connection with your website; and
• No intrusive interstitials, which are automated actions that can negatively affect a user’s viewing experience.

So, should you drop everything and focus only on the signals listed above? No way! Once the update is complete, page experience will be included along with the hundreds of other signals that are considered when search results are produced.

Google is telling us that page experience is important, yes. However, websites with the best information overall will still rank higher. In short, a great page experience with poor information will not outperform a page with high-quality content and a mediocre page experience. One important instance where page experience might be beneficial is in the event your company and a competitor have similar webpage content. If you’re able to outperform that competitor on page experience, then you’re more likely to beat them in the rankings.

We wish we could tell you exactly what to expect, but we can’t — the update isn’t complete and its full repercussions are not yet clear. The people at Google claim that we shouldn’t expect a big change, since the page experience update involves adding one new set of ranking factors to hundreds of existing factors.

And it’s true — the above metrics work together to provide a big-picture view on how users engage with a website. No one factor is make-or-break. But by using the individual metrics to break down variables, you can better identify and fix issues on your website.

Each metric – LCP, FID, and CLS – has three score categories: Good, Needs Improvement, and Poor. If a page is ranked as poor, pages with a higher score may rank above yours. You can check how your site scores on Core Web Vitals thanks to a variety of testing options. But before fret over your scores, remember:

1. It’s really hard to get a good score. One study looked at two million URLs and only 4% received a good score in all three Core Web Vitals.
2. This isn’t happening all at once. It’s likely that changes related to Core Web Vitals will apply slowly as more and more websites adopt best practices.

That said, even if you don’t see an immediate impact to your site’s rankings doesn’t mean that it won’t be affected later. There’s never been a better time to assess your site to ensure you’re strongly positioned for the rest of 2021 and into 2022.

Since Core Web Vitals are essentially about the speed in which elements load on a site, you might be worrying about site speed. It’s not uncommon for business owners to even turn to what are typically thought of as web developer tools, like Lighthouse, to analyze the performance of their website.

Site speed should be approached with a careful balance between speed and user experience (UX). One shouldn’t be sacrificed for the other since they’re both important when it comes to search rankings. At Stellaractive, for example, our developers take care to achieve the optimal balance by providing as many features as our clients require while minimizing the risk of loading down a site.

Our approach includes:

• Using leaner (less code intensive) plugins that accomplish one specific task, instead of loading a variety of bloated plugins that have overlapping features;
• Optimizing images so visuals look great without taking a long time to load;
• Minification, or the shrinking of code to remove spaces; and
• Using CDNs (content delivery networks) like Cloudflare, so a server closest to the user is used to transfer assets required to load content.

Is speed really an issue on your website? Consider the following:

• Do your customers complain about your site being slow?
• Can you use all other sites as expected, except for your own?
• Has there been a spike in your bounce rate?*
• Have you added plugins to your site without consulting with a professional WordPress developer?

If you answered “yes” to any of the questions above, it’s probably worth consulting with a web developer to see what can be addressed.