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SEOs have been patiently waiting for Google’s Page Experience Update since it was announced last November – and finally, it’s here.
More specifically, Google announced that it has begun a two-and-a-half-month rollout for the update, hoping to have it completed in August.
The page experience update is now slowly rolling out (Top Stories will begin using this new signal by Thursday). It will be complete by the end of August 2021. More here: https://t.co/kDwhhOYklK — Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) June 15, 2021
Notably, the update will see the implementation of ‘Core Web Vitals’ in search rankings. These are metrics that sites can improve to make their sites more accessible and functional for users. Specifically, the Core Web Vitals are:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), or how quickly content loads
First Input Delay (FID), or how quickly a page can become interactive
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), or how little unexpected movement of visual elements there is
In other words, in order to perform well, websites should load quickly, become interactive quickly, and have few elements that move unexpectedly.
Additionally, the update will see the removal of the ‘AMP badge.’ AMP is an HTML framework that developers often use to improve the speed of their sites. Moving forward, AMP will not be required to use the Google News app or Google’s News website.
Google is also updating its ‘Top Stories’ carousel feature. It will include all news content as long as the content meets Google’s guidelines for news.
Experts suggest that this update won’t lead to any drastic results – at least not right away.
Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller told one user that the slow nature of the rollout should prevent any quick drops:
No, we’re rolling this out slowly over the course of about 2 months. — 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) June 14, 2021
Prominent SEO writer Barry Schwartz wrote that the launch hasn’t brought forth any major shift in SERP results so far:
“So far we don’t see much in terms of ranking changes from this page experience update,” he wrote. “I checked the forum and community chatter as well as the tracking tools. All are quiet on the ranking fluctuation part.”
We can expect more developments to arise over the next two months.
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