Google Search Page Experience Algorithm Update Gets Postponed

Google recently announced it was postponing the rollout of its Google Page Experience Update. What was scheduled to be rolled out in May now won’t start until mid-June and won’t be fully rolled out until the end of August 2021.

The delay, according to Google, will allow it to “monitor for any unexpected or unintended issues” and “give site owners more tools to improve their pages for this update.”

The page experience doesn’t go live this upcoming month, but there are a couple of updates from Google that do.

1. The Google Page Experience Report in Search Console 

This report will include new data on:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
• First Input Delay (FID)
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
• HTTPS
• Mobile-friendliness
• Safe browsing status
• Absence of intrusive interstitials

The update report also combines the above data points with the core web vitals report. It will give you the percentage of URLs with good page experience and search impressions over time. This lets you quickly evaluate performance and examine any improvements needed to specific pages.

2. Updated Search Performance Report

This update lets you filter with good search experience reports and pages with varying levels of search experience reports, which will let you see how your “good” search experience report pages versus your “poor” search experience report pages are performing.

Google Updates in Mid-June and August

More changes will happen to the Google Page Experience in June, including:

• The slow rollout of the ranking change
• The disappearance of the AMP badge
• The testing of a page experience badge
• An update to the Top Stories carousel on Google Search to include all news content as long as it meets Google news guidelines and policies

In the August updates, you’ll see all the core web vital metrics including LCP, FID, CLS and the removal of the AMP requirement for the top stories carousel.

While this seems like a lot of changes to digest, Google says it won’t be drastic.

“While this update is designed to highlight pages that offer great user experiences, page experience remains one of many factors our systems take into account… Given this, sites generally should not expect drastic changes,” Google stated in a news release.

How To Prepare for These Google Updates

While it might seem like a lot to digest, it’s best to ensure your site is always well-optimized. If it is, Kuno’s SEO Director Brendan Bowers recommends waiting to see how these new updates affect your site’s performance and adjust accordingly.

Ensuring Your Site’s Optimized for These Google Updates

If your site’s not well-optimized and you’d like to help boost your page experience, try working on these issues:

• Optimize for Mobile Search: Mobile devices account for over 50% of web traffic. If your page isn’t mobile-optimized, now’s the time. Use a simple, responsive web design that’s easier to navigate on smaller screens. Also, reducing redirects and using browser caching can help.
• Improve Page Speed: Delayed page loading times can drastically decrease conversions (not to mention it can be frustrating for the user). A 3-second page load time is recommended by Google as a best practice. You can achieve this by minimizing HTTPS requests and looking at JavaScript loading and server response times.
• Use Alt Text: Alt tags describe an image and its function on the page. They also show up if an image doesn’t load. So, short, keyword-dense descriptions go a long way in improving your site’s experience and ranking.

“Kuno Creative is paying attention to this and we know that it’s coming,” said Bowers. “We are going to be hypersensitive to any changes in organic trends and what that might mean. Google has been reporting on these items since October in Google Search Console. They’re just saying that at some point, it’s going to be a ranking factor. We just need to understand how much of a ranking factor it is.”