These days you can't expect your business to stay competitive if you're not near the top of Google's search results pages. A series of always-changing criteria go into the algorithm that determines these search rankings. As a business owner, you must stay up-to-date with any alterations that Google makes. Staying updated can help you keep your company's website front-and-center for customers and allow you to remain competitive in a busy marketplace.
That's why you should know about Google's new change: Beginning June 17, page experience signals started to be factored into search rankings.
What are page experience signals?
According to Google, “Page experience signals are a set of signals that measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page beyond its pure information value.” The criteria most immediately affected by the upcoming changes are mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS, and intrusive interstitial guidelines. Each of these metrics of your website is now factored into the search rankings.
Here are additional details about Google’s update:
- Ranking changes will be gradual and won't be complete until late August.
- Google is phasing out the AMP badge — meaning your site won't need to be an Accelerated Mobile Page to appear in Google’s Top Stories section.
- Google has plans for a page experience badge - but this hasn't yet been finalized.
- The Top Stories carousel feature on Google Search will be updated to include all news content. AMP is no longer required here to rank in specific top stories.
- These changes are independent of factoring in Core Web Vitals to search rankings. Core Web Vitals are criteria that measure the technical side of a site's user experience. These metrics are soon to be included in Google's ranking algorithm but are separate from the updates detailed above.
To learn more about these changes, read here.
