In May, Google announced that it would be adopting new criteria for ranking search results. Find out what will change.
It’s not that long ago that Google advised us to keep the user in mind when designing a website. Aspects such as page opening speed and adaptability for mobile phones are already important factors when it comes to ranking results.
At the end of May, the Chrome team announced “Core Web Vitals“, which is a set of metrics that take into account elements such as speed, responsiveness and visual stability. Now, on 28 May, Google has announced that it will incorporate them into its core and will call them Page Experience.
What will change?
In real life: almost nothing.
Google is going to incorporate Core Web Visuals into the metrics it already uses, which are time to load a page, compatibility with mobile devices, security, https protocol and the absence of intrusive adverts or pop-ups.
What else does Core Web Visuals bring? A new name for something that, one way or another, Google already cared about. So to speak, it has put down on paper elements that, in one way or another, they were already considering.
Google has already updated PageSpeed Insights to reflect the changes, if anyone is curious to take a look.
They make it very clear: these components are important, but it is the quality of the content and information offered that will be the priority, even if some aspects of the experience are not perfect. The page experience acts as a tie-breaker in cases where there are more pages with similar content.
The real news is: AMP
Google currently uses the AMP framework to select the content that will appear in the Top News results in mobile search.
With this change, AMP will no longer be required to appear in the Top News section. Google will be able to open any page, as the page experience will be the determining factor for ranking.
Maintaining an AMP is a lot of work, as it’s basically a second version of your site in the framework. The biggest benefit is the possibility of appearing in Top News, which brings a lot of traffic to sites. With the exclusion of this requirement, content creators will be able to rethink whether to keep AMP or not. For those who wish to keep it, the content shown will be that available in AMP.
Will I have to update my sites to adjust to these changes?
The good news is that every time Google comes up with a major change, it announces it well in advance.
Basically, you’ll have to adjust your site, but there’s no need to despair. There’s time! The changes won’t come in 2020 and the right date will be announced at least six months in advance.
Summary
On 28 May Google announced a change to the process of analysing a page for ranking in search results.
The entire set of metrics will be called Page Experience. This is the incorporation of Chrome’s new Core Web Visuals metrics into what Google already uses.
It doesn’t really change much, and Google itself says not to get neurotic trying to achieve the ideal metric. Presenting quality, interesting and rich content is still the most important decisive factor in positioning.
The most important change is that AMP will no longer be a determining factor in appearing in the Top News section of mobile searches. It will be possible, through Page Experience metrics, to present any website that fulfils the news requirements.