How to get prepared for Google’s Page Experience Update?

Google has confirmed that its Page Experience update has finally started rolling out. It has started rolling out now and will be completed by the conclusion of August this year. This update will be rolling out gradually to every user globally.

The company announced that they will start making use of page experience in the middle of June 2021 as a part of their ranking systems.

Nevertheless, page experience will not be playing its full role until the conclusion of August as a part of those systems. This can be compared to adding flavor to the food prepared by you. However, instead of adding the entire flavor into the mix simultaneously, they will gradually add the flavor.

It is not expected for the sites to see any drastic change because of this update. According to Google, the gradual rollout procedure should help to mitigate any abrupt drops or spikes.

It was declared by Google earlier in November that the page experience update will be going live in 2021.

Lots of information has been derived regarding the contents of the update since then. It is good news for the site owners that no new feature has been thrown in by Google that was not revealed previously.

In the following paragraphs, we have mentioned what exactly is constituted by the page experience update, which will allow you to recapitulate what has been shared with the SEO community and the site owners already.

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What do you mean by Page Experience Update?

Several signals are considered by the page experience update that helps to create a fantastic browsing experience for the users. Each signal is evaluated by Google, which gives a “page experience” score to a website. It will be feasible for the site owners to view the score in Search Console.

These are the signals plus what will be needed for achieving a good score.

• Mobile usability: A page mustn’t have any mobile usability error.

• HTTPS usage: It is essential to serve a page over HTTPS to become entitled to Good page experience status.

• Security issues: Every single page on the site will be disqualified from a Good status if there is any security issue.

• Ad experience: Advertising procedures that are interrupting, distracting, or not conducive to a proper user experience must not be used by a site.

The pages don’t have to include AMP in the Top Stories carousel. This modification will be effective very soon.

Moreover, the use of non-AMP content is being expanded by Google to Google News, plus the AMP badge icon has been removed from the search results.

Although, at present, the update is only applicable to mobile search results, it is going to roll out afterward to desktop.

As described by Google, it is expected that the desktop launch will be taking place soon. However, it is not likely to occur at the time of the rollout, which is happening between now and the conclusion of August.

If you are not fully prepared for the update, Google suggests you not be panic-stricken since the ranking signal happens to be a “tiebreaker.” We will be learning more regarding the page experience update over time, given that it is quite early right now to observe any impact.

What will be included by Page Experience?

 As per Google, the innovative page experience will combine Core Web Vitals and the present search signals such as safe browsing, mobile-friendliness, intrusive interstitial guidelines, and HTTPS security.

• FID (First Input Delay) – This metric will be monitoring the time between the initial interaction of a user with your web page and when the page will be responding. It is imperative not to go for a First Input Delay of under 100 milliseconds to offer a remarkable user experience.

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) – This metric will be measuring the time in which the main content of the page is going to load. It will be essential to have an LCP of fewer than 2.5 seconds.

• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) – This will be tracking the visual stability of your web page’s content. In case there is an unexpected shift in your site layout, it will not provide a proper user experience. Therefore, it will be sensible to make certain that the CLS score is under 0.1.

• Mobile-friendliness – This metric is going to check whether your page happens to be responsive.

• Safe-browsing – This will verify whether there is any deceptive content or malware on your site.

• Mobile-friendliness – This metric will be checking whether the page is responsive.

• HTTPS – This will be evaluating whether the connection of your site is secure via HTTPS.

• No intrusive interstitials – This helps make certain that the user can easily access the main content. An interstitial happens to be an ad that pops up while a web page gets downloaded.

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How to make certain that your site is prepared for page experience?

1. Ensure that the site is mobile-friendly

In September last year, Google transitioned to mobile-first indexing. Consequently, this ought to be a given by now. Mobile-friendliness is going to influence the ranking of your website to a great extent. Make use of the Mobile-friendly test of Google to find out whether your site is responsive.

It will be a good idea to migrate your site to a mobile-friendly web builder if you are making use of a site builder not optimized for mobile or running the site on an outdated theme.

2. Enhance the speed of your site

Loading time happens to be one significant element of the Core Web Vitals. Therefore, if the page loads quickly, the page experience will be better, and you will get a higher ranking.

Tools such as PageSpeed Insights of Google evaluate web page content quickly and generate suggestions for enhancing the speed of your page.

3. Ensure that your site is secure

Inadequate website security will be impacting SEO rankings adversely for a considerable period. Therefore, the objective of the most recent update of Google will be to rank sites offering remarkable experiences, including protecting their info online.

Your Google Search Console has to be checked to determine whether there is any security issue with your site. This info can be found under “Security and Manual Actions.” Once the issues are fixed, it will be imperative to click “Request Review” to inform Google that action has been taken to enhance your site’s security.

The key to SEO success

It is now time to get prepared for the page experience update of Google. Protect your present rankings and make way for fresh rankings by ensuring that your site can satisfy the new standards.