Google "Page Experience Update" now rolling out

[sk7411]

System: The following 4 messages were cut out of "Core Updates Thread" at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/5037667.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 3:16 pm PT on Jun 15, 2021 - (PDT -8)



FYI , Page experience update is now slowly rolling out:...

Google Search Central - Twitter
https://twitter.com/googlesearchc/status/1404886100087246848 [twitter.com]

The page experience update is now slowly rolling out (Top Stories will begin using this new signal by Thursday). It will be complete by the end of August 2021.

More here:
More time, tools, and details on the page experience update
[developers.google.com...]

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 11:27 pm (utc) on Jun 15, 2021]
[edit reason] Added context and formatting for links [/edit]

[universenet]

FYI , Page experience update is now slowly rolling out:

[twitter.com...]

so, it is coming...

[christianz]

I bet you all of those 841 (and counting) blogspot sites linking to me with auto generated word salad and hotlinked images have excellent "page experience", "core web vitals" and flawless reputation overall, being hosted by Googles own Blogger platform.

[universenet]

I bet you all of those 841 (and counting) blogspot sites linking to me with auto generated word salad and hotlinked images have excellent "page experience", "core web vitals" and flawless reputation overall, being hosted by Googles own Blogger platform

Cristinaz, I need dissapointed you, some blogspots websites blogs have very bad core web vitals,
it is not all ablut speed, it is about structure of website and external elements
I saw some blog from blogspots with very bad core web vitals

[Robert Charlton]

Mods' note: The Core Updates discussion often got so far off topic that we feel this post is necessary.

The topic of this new thread is about the observed effects of the Google's Page Experience algo... with perhaps notes about what's being measured, both technically and in terms of real-life user experience... It might also about observed ranking tradeoffs between unique content and page performance... about the ranking effects of page-shift and loading speed... etc.

It is not about whether AI is real, nor is it about the Fall of the Roman Empire, nor about good versus evil, nor about how we feel about mega-corporations and big or little government.

It is not about business issues at all... except that it is about keeping the web experience user-friendly, and that does affect not only Google's bottom line, but our own.

We're all in this together... This is new from Google; we're here to learn from each other... and that's why some of us are concerned about keeping the discussions helpful to us all. We volunteer mods are finding that splitting out off-topic posts to new threads or to business issues or Foo is extremely time consuming and does not scale well. If we encounter excessive topic drift, we may find that we need simply to delete those off-topic posts, without explanation or notice, rather than to deal with them as we have been.

Our apologies in advance if that happens. If you've invested a lot of time in an off-topic post, please make a copy for yourself, because you may not find it here. Use the Reported button (in the drop-down menu hidden behind the message number out the top of every post). I'm hoping this helps create a more informative discussion for everyone. Thanks.

[Robert Charlton]

it is not all ablut speed, it is about structure of website and external elements

universenet - If you're willing to share, I'd love more details on this observation, without getting into the specific sites themselves.

[Kendo]

After seeing a blank page that had nothing more than a page title and a heading appear as #1 for what are very competitive search keywords, I do not put any stock in anything that is claimed by Google or the SEO experts.

As for page vitals, if by creating a page that tells it all, is easy to navigate and sits well on all devices, what possibly could be lacking that is of any real consequence?

[BushyTop]

Anyone seen any changes yet. Presumably this is why I've seen changes to by page experience reports on GSC. Has anyone else seen any changes or improvements?

[yollo03]

Theo only change I see is bleeding keywords. All the algorithm does is downrank every day multiple keywords. This has nothing to do with the page experience, it started beforehand. I made some changes in the past 48 hours for the page experience. It will take a lot of time to see any changes from the page experience.

[Dimitri]

After seeing a blank page that had nothing more than a page title and a heading appear as #1 for what are very competitive search keywords, I do not put any stock in anything that is claimed by Google or the SEO experts.

On the contrary!

a blank page

A blank page has perfect core vitals score, page speed, or whatever other scoring.

nothing more than a page title and a heading

Perfect user experience too. The information is delivered clearly, without distracting unrelated elements, plus, this is a summit in keyword density.

[iamlost]

I believe that many WebDevs need to take a step back and a deep breath. The PE (page experience) update is probably NOT causing whatever ranking/traffic change you are experiencing.
Note: always remember that Google makes (multiple) daily algo changes, so too competitors, visitors’ daily lives and online needs/queries are both alterable and fungible...

Many appear to have forgotten (or never knew) the critical part of the Google PE announcement of a year ago:
Note: my bold emphasis.

While all of the components of page experience are important, we will prioritize pages with the best information overall, even if some aspects of page experience are subpar. A good page experience doesn't override having great, relevant content. However, in cases where there are multiple pages that have similar content, page experience becomes much more important for visibility in Search.
...Evaluating page experience for a better web [developers.google.com], 28-May-2020.

PE is a potential tie breaker position flip not a knockout game over.
Note: I am not going to get into a discussion of whether/how well Google determines ‘great relevant content’.

Should a site take these metrics seriously? Yes, of course. Along with every other usability and user experience metric.
Because of the site visitor and the site business bottom line, not because of Google.
Note: that Google continuously feels the need to keep highlighting ‘normal’ WebDev best practices when speaking to input updates is a sad commentary.

Best practices such as what these metrics highlight are already (or certainly should be) baked into the sites of competent competitive webdevs.

Frankly, there are a number of significant enterprise sites, especially news/media that are not just poor by these measures but bl**dy awful, that I visit regularly. My personal PE pudding proof will be whether such sites improve.

While as a user I’d love to see a drip to cascade change for the better, as a webdev who has invested quite a lot over the years into the general (as opposed to the Google) topic of page/user experience I quite enjoy the competitive gap between my retention, return, and conversion and that of my competitors. Yes, the glass is simultaneously half full, empty. :)

My greatest concern in this discussion is how to know that a site is specifically being impacted by PE as opposed to some other change. Of course if enough WebDevs believe that they are, and implement improvements perhaps it doesn’t matter?

For your historical reading pleasure:
Google Page Experience: Upcoming Search Ranking Change [webmasterworld.com], 28-May-2020.

Shhhh, can you hear it? [webmasterworld.com], 19-April-2021.

[mzb44]

I believe that many WebDevs need to take a step back and a deep breath. The PE (page experience) update is probably NOT causing whatever ranking/traffic change you are experiencing.

You know very well the opposite of this will happen. Every single ranking change no matter how big or small will for months to come be blamed on the PE update.

This already began months ago with multiple people even on this forum claiming that the PE update was already secretly launched and it had a massive impact.

Expect any ranking change from now on to be blamed on core web vitals and the PE update. Just watch and see. It's going to happen here in this thread too, perhaps even just a few posts after this one here.

[saladtosser]

Well considering I still see sites that aren't mobile friendly (or have a mobile version) don't have SSL and speed score is in the gutter ranking above, me I don't hold out any hope for CWV doing anything. Keep building them backlinks guys!

[saladtosser]

Wondering if its time to ditch hero images, they look nice sure but they are the worst for lcp, and maybe other superfluous things like facebook "like" or share counters, even AMP versions seem like bloat, Thoughts? RIP nice web design, going forward maybe just put your content on a .txt file lol

[EditorialGuy]

I believe that many WebDevs need to take a step back and a deep breath. The PE (page experience) update is probably NOT causing whatever ranking/traffic change you are experiencing.

Remember all the swooning that went on when SSL became a ranking factor? Even when Google said it would be a "tiny" ranking factor, there weren't enough fainting couches to go around.

[Robert Charlton]

Wondering if its time to ditch hero images, they look nice sure but they are the worst for lcp,

saladtosser... good thought, albeit many did that years ago. I've followed sites using these for quite a while, and can say that (in my relatively small sample) the most notable examples of large corporate sites that had been using these ditched them a long time back.

I've had several clients who loved that heroic image size, to such a degree that they even wanted to drop all text on their home pages. But as I've watched sites evolve, I've seen that even the well-known 800-lb gorillas who didn't need the page speed for ranking switched to smaller images when user-experience became a thing.

Along the way, some sites I followed switched to stylized images... say monochrome overlayed with checkerboard textures that grealy reduced file-size... but even those are now used less often.

Responsive design also made moveable square category images on home pages fashionable. These served as main category navigation and would shift as viewport sizes changed.

All of which is to say that hero images aren't showing up that much any more. Additionally, making the images themselves responsive, so they'll work with screen size, has been more widely used for quite a while.

[Pontificus Maximux]

I have 3 websites that I own and work on myself. One is a niche blog in a very large niche. One is an affiliate site in a shoulder niche of my blog, and one is an e-commerce store directly related to the affiliate site that I started over 1 year ago after Amazon sliced and diced the affiliate commissions. The e-commerce store was unaffected.

At the 11:00 AM Pacific Time hour both the blog and the affiliate site got decimated. 1/10th of the traffic on the same day from the week before per hour. Today, at the 6:00 AM Hour both sites started a recovery to previous levels give or take 10% fluctuation. That recovery was completed by the 10:00 AM hour Pacific Time. Again no effect on the e-commerce store.

This morning I went to GSC to see if I had any warnings in the core vitals section. The only warning was a yellow warning about LCP time. It was caused first by image file size I believe, then once corrected I still get it due to uncompressed text used in ad provider ad code. Beyond my control.

Now I did the correction on smushing my images further after the recovery was in place, so it is not connected to the recovery.

Hopefully this will shed some light for someone somewhere. I am just reporting my anecdotal experience.

[Robert Charlton]

My emphasis added...

The only change I see is bleeding keywords. All the algorithm does is downrank every day multiple keywords. This has nothing to do with the page experience, it started beforehand.

yollo03... by "everyday multiple keywords", I assume you're referring to commonly used phrases... like "how to", "how can I", "how can you", "what's the best way," etc etc etc... that all mean the same thing, but once upon a time were targeted individually because exact matches were a way to target long tail?

As you point out, that's largely ancient history, replaced by one of many ways of query rewriting... and it's a waste of time weeping over them. Thank goodness we don't have to build multiple pages for those natural variants to be found.

Such changes will of course continue during this page experience update. That's what makes SEO so much fun ;) ...sorting out the many layers of what's happening.

It will take a lot of time to see any changes from the page experience.

Yes, that's also correct. Initially, Page Experience is going to target only the outliers... and page experience will only be used as a tie-breaker.


Mod's note, a PS to add, mod's hat on... that it's not helpful to clutter up this thread with grumbles about things past. Please stick to what we're seeing that may be new. Thanks.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:33 pm (utc) on Jun 16, 2021]

[Pontificus Maximux]

I should add that both of the affected sites were using WordPress. The e-commerce site is using a major e-commerce website provider.

[RedBar]

time to ditch hero images, they look nice sure but they are the worst for lcp

Translation please.

[Robert Charlton]

Pontificus_Maximux, it sounds like you may be expecting Google to react to changes much more quickly than it can. Google has a file/indexing system with h-u-g-e databases... with so many layers that there are databases used simply to manage the order in which other databases can be changed, so that data is not confused or lost.

Depending on where the cycle was when you entered it... it may take quite a while for the changes to take effect. It might even be that Google's not making changes in this course of this update... I don't know.

I myself would sit back for a few days and watch before making any changes at all. YMMV.

[nomis5]

I would sit back for several months before doing anything at all. Let others search around the miniscule changes which this update will introduce, because they will be almost unnoticeable.

[NickMNS]

@Pontificus Maximux
It helps to read what was written:

Top Stories will begin using this new signal by Thursday

If your blog is featured in Top Stories, then maybe, just maybe, you may see an impact tomorrow. I seriously doubt that your previous version has been affected by this roll out, let alone your fix. Given that the update still hasn't happened.

But let's not stop reading there:

It will be complete by the end of August 2021.

So hurry up and wait. Then let's talk again in September.

Also let's not forget:
Correlation is not causation.
There has just been a core update that completed last Saturday, the SERPS are still in a state of flux as things settle down from that update. So it will be long while until anyone will be able to attribute any changes (positive or negative) to this PEx update.

And one final note, sticking with the "let's keep reading" theme, in the June core update announcement on Twitter it said:

This will be followed by the July 2021 Core update.

Just to add to the confusion (obfuscation) in addition to the June core update ending right before the PEx update, there will be a July core update rolling out concurrently with the PEx update. Then if you believe the pundits, the start/end dates for the updates are the actual dates but are just there for PR, so who knows!

Bottom line is:
Making changes solely to please Google is a loosing strategy.

[Samsam1978]

My rankings are dropping off a cliff. WTH is going on. This is a completely messed-up update. I'm just bleeding rankings. Very strange. 40% reduction in top 1 positions now. It's really strange, could this all be due to web vitals.

[edited by: Samsam1978 at 9:12 pm (utc) on Jun 16, 2021]

[Pontificus Maximux]

@Robert Charlston. I quote "Now I did the correction on smushing my images further after the recovery was in place, so it is not connected to the recovery." No expectation of changes that fast since it was done after the recovery started.

@ NickMNS. Again I always wait. The only reason I smushed images again (the second time) is because of the yellow warning. I usually fix warnings but had put this one off.

The only reason I posted is that the drop-off occurred as soon as the announcement happened and the recovery happened 19 hours later. It shows me that whatever rolled out at that time was either rolled back or modified.

And don't believe everything Google says. They use subterfuge all the time.

[Samsam1978]

After a serious review of the landscape, this update is not ALL about web vitals there is so much more to this.

[NickMNS]

@Pontificus Maximux
My post wasn't targeted specifically at you, I just used your post as a case in point.

@Samsam1978

After a serious review of the landscape,

Not sure how serious your review was, but it certainly involves a crystal ball. See my post above. (tl-dr: update only starts tomorrow)

[mzb44]

Expect any ranking change from now on to be blamed on core web vitals and the PE update. Just watch and see. It's going to happen here in this thread too, perhaps even just a few posts after this one here.

My rankings are dropping off a cliff. WTH is going on. This is a completely messed-up update. I'm just bleeding rankings. Very strange. 40% reduction in top 1 positions now. It's really strange, could this all be due to web vitals.

Yeah, as expected it didn't take long.

[Dimitri]

After a serious review of the landscape, this update is not ALL about web vitals there is so much more to this.

Since the web vital related update, "began" rolling out on June 15th, and will take 2 months to complete, it didn't require a serious review to come up with this conclusion ...

edit: also, the web vitals update, is not going to shuffle the SERP, I am sure it will be nearly unnoticeable.

[yollo03]

If out of 20,000 urls on a website 30 are http:// (external links), will it still fail the https in PE report or because most urls are https it will pass?