Google Page Experience – The Algorithm Update

Google has long been the master of determining when and where your website is found. Assessing everything from the value of your content to the reliability of external links, through to the size of each page and the time it takes to load, the algorithms that Google uses to rank websites are long-winded and often difficult to decipher.

That’s why, to help businesses and website owners out, we’ve pulled together this guide to the upcoming algorithm update, which was announced in 2020 and is set to become widely implemented across 2021.

What Do The Updates Mean?

Referred to as Google Page Experience, the updates look at just that – the experience of using any selected webpage, from the perspective of the user. As such, every part of the algorithm and every bit of insight you can glean from it isn’t just useful at telling you whether Google will rank your website highly or not – it is also a crucial element to understanding how your website visitors are using and interacting with your site.

A great way to look at this is to see Google’s Page Experience update as giving you even more information about that user perspective, so that you can make the changes necessary to make your website visitors happy.

Ready to find out what the upcoming changes are and what they mean for your website? Let’s find out.

The Seven Elements Of Page Experience

The latest updates to the Google Page Experience algorithm see three new areas of focus added to an existing list of four. This list of seven elements is now being referred to as ‘Page Experience’ – with the single heading providing website owners with more insight into exactly what Google is focussing on and the benefits of the algorithm in enhancing the online experience.

Prior to these changes, Google was already looking at mobile optimisation, safe browsing, HTTPS and intrusive pop-ups as integral parts of the user journey.

The three newest elements are referred to as the Core Web Vitals and are responsible for letting Google (and you) know how fast your webpages are loading and how quickly they are delivering interactive content to active users. The three elements are:

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) – the clue is in the title with this one. Google looks at the largest single content element on every webpage and establishes the time it takes for that element to load. This in essence provides information on how long it takes for your website to fully load in the eyes of the user. A reading of under 2.5 seconds is optimum. Anything above 4 seconds is considered a poor user experience.
• FID (First Input Delay) – this deals with interactive elements of your website, letting you know how long it takes for the website to react to user actions, for example clicking a button. As this is where all of the customer action comes from and given the amount of time you put into guiding the user towards taking that action, ensuring the result is as fast as possible is key. A reading of under 100 milliseconds is considered a satisfactory result.
• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) – the third and final part of Core Web Vitals assesses the stability of each element of your website; looking at whether scrolling affects or impacts the placement of each button, image, and text box on every given page. The CLS should measure as low as possible to indicate that the website is stable and that everything holds its place – with a reading of less than 0.1 preferable.

Adding these three aspects to the Google Page Experience algorithm means that website owners will need to be more attuned than ever before to the backend stability of their website and how it is working against frontline actions.

The four existing areas of focus, which have been added to the Google Page Experience grouping for an overall view of optimisation and the user journey, are as follows:

Mobile Usability – optimising your website to be used across any and every device is more important now than ever before, especially with so many customer journeys originating from social media apps and mobile browsing. Ensuring your website is mobile-friendly means checking that the layout, display, text size, image size, videos, and navigation tools are all adjusted to display effectively on a mobile screen – or indeed the screen of any other device.

Safe Browsing – this is a pretty simple one, essentially ensuring that your website is free from security breaches, harmful malware, or deceptive content that can be damaging or misleading to customers and users.

HTTPS – if your website has HTTPS at the start in the search bar, it means you have a website security certificate. This tells users (and Google) that any information or data provided by users, and any financial details inputted as part of a sale, will be encrypted and protected. It is an absolutely fundamental part of eCommerce and other high traffic conversion website.

Intrusive Pop-Ups – you know when you click on a website and instantly see a pop up asking for your email address, or advising you of an exclusive new product? This aspect of Google Page Experience looks at those pop-ups and decides whether or not they negatively affect the customer journey. It also looks at how these pop-ups are monitored and adjusted for different screens, for example how they appear on mobile sites.

Get ‘Google Page Experience’ Ready

Now that you know exactly what Google Page Experience is going to be looking for, you shouldn’t have much trouble finding out where your website stands in a ranking of these seven separate elements. We recommend diving in with a Google Search Console report, and also taking the time to experience your own website through the experience of a visitor.

Head to social media or any other marketing channel you use and move through the customer journey as if you were a new user. This is one of the best ways to get to know your website and identify stumbling blocks and potential issues from the frontline.