Google New SEO Update 2021: A couple of weeks ago, Google announced Web Vitals, a new set of metrics for measuring the speed and usability of websites. Google announced last week that these metrics will be included in a core algorithm update as new ways to measure and rank sites based on the experience of their pages. This update should come into practical use in 2021, but already now it is worth figuring out what it will consist of and how to optimize sites.
Page Experience Optimization for Search Results:
In 2010, Google announced that it would take site speed into account when determining rankings. In 2018, Google took advantage of a page's ranking factor in mobile search results. Now Google has announced a new update, which is considering a variety of new or updated parameters - in combination with other factors interact with the user to create an update experience with the page.
Are you talking about a page with experience? In an ideal world, you click a link in the search results and the page in question appears instantly. But we all know this is a pipe dream. Over the years, pages have only grown in size, and the popularity of JavaScript has made them even more complex and difficult to load. Even with lightning-fast internet connections and powerful devices, loading a web page can be a daunting task. Waiting for pages to load can also be stressful for users. Not to mention the maddening site performance that some websites offer, resulting in no clicks and the like.
For years, optimizing website performance has basically meant optimizing for speed. But load time is only part of the equation, and the other part is more difficult to define and measure. It's about how the user experiences all these optimizations. The site can be fast in accordance with the metric, but feels if he himself fast? So it's time to take a sharp look at the page experience.
In Google's words: “A great experience with pages allows people to do more and interact more actively; On the contrary, a poor page experience can prevent a person from finding valuable information on the page. ”
The Emergence of WEB-Vitals:
In early May 2020, Google announced Web Vitals, a carefully researched set of metrics that will help anyone identify opportunities to improve the performance of their sites. These new metrics have a subset of the metrics that every site owner should target, called Core Web Vitals. According to Google, "Core Web Vitals is a set of real, user-centric metrics that quantify key aspects of the user experience."
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Each Core Web Vital addresses a specific piece of the page experience puzzle, and together they help both Google and you understand the site's perception. Essential Web Vital is available in all Google tools that measure page perception.
Major web vital will evolve over time and new ones may be added in due course. For 2020, Google has identified three specific focal points:
• Loading,
• Interactivity,
• Visual stability.
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These focal points correspond to three new indicators:
• LCP, or Largest Contentful Paint: This metric shows how long it takes to load the largest content item you see in the viewport.
• FID, or First Input Lag: The FID determines how long it takes for the browser to respond to an interaction first initiated by the user (for example, when a button is pressed)
• CLS, or Cumulative Layout Shift: Does this new metric measure the percentage of the screen that is affected by motion - that is, material bounces across the screen?
The new Core Web Vitals are designed to help you improve the experience optimization of your site's pages.
As you can see, these key metrics don't just show how fast something is loading. They also look at how long it takes for the elements to become ready for use. Cumulative Layout Shift is the most forward-thinking of them all. It has nothing to do with speed, but it's all about preventing bad user experience - like clicking the wrong button because ads load at the last moment. Think about how you feel when this happens? Pretty pissed off, right?
Combining new metrics with existing ranking factors:
The launch of Web Vitals is remarkable in itself, but Google took it up a notch this week. Google is going to use these new metrics - in conjunction with existing experience ranking factors - to help rank pages. Keep in mind that Google uses an unknown number of factors to evaluate sites and rank them. Some factors weigh a lot, but most have less impact. However, they tell the story of the website.
The new web vital combines several existing factors that make up the ranking factors on the page:
• Mobility: Is your site mobile-optimized?
• HTTPS: is your site using a secure connection?
• Interstitial Usage: Is your site staying away from nasty pop-ups?
• Safe Browsing: Is Your Site Safe For Visitors?
These are now being supplemented with real, user-centric metrics such as LCP, FID and CLS mentioned earlier. Taken together, these factors take into account everything a user experiences on a website to try to create a holistic picture of your site's performance, as Google likes to say.
Major web vital combined with existing ranking factors form page perception factors.
Of course, this is just another way for Google to understand how good your site is, and it can be easy to exaggerate the importance of this particular update. It will still be impossible to give a site a great user experience, but crappy content.
While the quality of your content is still paramount to getting good rankings, performance and perceived user experience now come into play as well. With these metrics, Google has found a way to get tons of ideas that look at your site from all angles.
Updating the Google Page Experience in 2021:
Google is often accused of not communicating with SEO and site owners. In the past, we have seen many-core algorithm updates come without comment. However, Google looks more genuine today than ever. In the event of a Page Experience update, Google warns us twice: one announcing Page Experience Rating Factors, and once six months prior to rolling out the update in 2021.
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By announcing it ahead of time, Google is giving site owners, SEOs, and developers ample time to prepare for this update. There are tons of new tools out there to understand how these metrics work and how you can improve your site using these ideas. There's a lot of new documentation to sift through. And you can start right now. Sometime next year, Google will tell you that the update will be out in six months.
No more AMP requirements for top news:
You may find another interesting news about the page refresh. Google will no longer require AMP to get your news pages in the Top Stories section. Now any well-built site validated by Google News can aim for that top spot. Page experience will be a ranking factor for Top Stories, so your site is better off.
New Page Tools?
Google has done everything it can to ensure that every site owner adapts to the changes in the page experience. New or updated tools can help you get the information you need. They also help you understand what it all means.
• A Beacon in DevTools now in version 6.0
• PageSpeed Insights includes new metrics
• New Chrome User Experience Report API lets you get up to 28 days of historical data for your URLs
• Experience section in the DevTools Performance panel
• Look in the Console's Core Web Vitals report for information on how your site is performing.
• Web Vitals Chrome extension for quick access to metrics from the browser
• Start testing, Start improving!
In the past, optimizing your site for user experience and user experience was like flying blindly - you never really had a good understanding of what makes a site fast and what makes it feel fast. Over the years, Google has seen the need for good metrics and heard the cries of users who want sites that are comfortable, safe, and fast. By announcing these metrics - and announcing them as ranking factors - Google makes the page measurable and deems it useful enough to rank sites.
Remember, the update won't be out until 2021, but the tools are there so you can start testing and improving. Good luck! These are the Google's New SEO Update 2021.