Since its announcement, the page experience update has generated much speculation among SEO professionals. The update emphasized user experience as a more significant Google ranking factor than before and was announced over a year before its rollout.
Google stated well in advance that the page experience update would be relatively minor: “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.”
Now that the update has been fully rolled out for several months, it’s time to review its impact and discuss new ways to optimize Core Web Vitals (CWV) to enhance user experience.
Few SEOs have seen significant rankings changes, but that’s only part of the story
“I don’t know anyone who has been impacted. Even those that had a really bad score… major improvements and no change,” UK-based freelance SEO consultant Andy Drinkwater mentioned on Twitter, specifically regarding impacts on the search results (rankings). Drinkwater’s experience seems common—many other SEOs have also shared that the investment in improving CWV has yet to yield returns in the SERPs.
Isolating the page experience update. It’s important to recognize that any perceived results from optimizing CWV might not have occurred in isolation. The page experience update rolled out between June 15 and September 2, 2021. During that span, Google also rolled out two spam updates, the July 2021 core update, and potentially numerous unconfirmed updates as well.
These external variables make it more difficult to correlate the effects of the page experience update to visibility or performance.
But, ROI isn’t just on the SERP. Rankings are only one metric and do not necessarily reflect the full effect of improved UX for your business. Other metrics, like conversion rate, may benefit as you improve your site for users. “I have seen massive impacts on the conversion and cost savings fronts but not on organic,” said freelance SEO and PPC consultant Arnout Hellemans.
While most marketers refrained from specifics or providing data, SEO consultant Kristine Schachinger shared a screenshot of improved clicks and impressions, attributing the increases to Page Speed and CWVs.
“Performance optimization may not be a silver bullet for rankings, but we don’t optimize just for that,” stated Detlef Johnson, SEO for developers expert. “[Core Web] Vitals, as determined by Google, are the tip of the spear that you can sharpen to cut through the network to load the experience faster, which can lead to more add-to-cart actions because it builds confidence and trust,” he added.
Data from tool providers shows a slightly more nuanced view
Semrush’s preliminary study “[hasn’t] spotted any significant changes in rankings.” “Field data indicates very minor changes to all three metrics we measured before, after, and one month into the update,” said Aoife McIlraith, VP of marketing, core product at Semrush. The study, which focused exclusively on mobile search results, collected the top 10 results from both desktop and mobile SERPs for 2,500 random keywords; the CWV metrics for all the URLs in the top 10 of those results were measured just a week before the update rolled out, roughly a week after it began rolling out, and once more, a month after the rollout started.
“[CWV] has a measurable influence on the Google rankings,” according to SISTRIX. Approximately two weeks after the page experience update rollout was completed, SISTRIX evaluated how rankings changed for “good domains” (that meet all three CWV criteria) and “bad domains” (that do not meet at least one of the three CWV criteria).
“Based on the Visibility Index, we saw that pages that meet all of Google’s requirements rank one percentage point better than the average,” said Johannes Beus, CEO and founder of SISTRIX. Pages that failed at least one of the CWV metrics, on the other hand, ranked significantly worse (3.7% worse on SISTRIX’s Visibility Index).
Correlation is not causation. Attributing performance to CWV optimizations may not be straightforward. “Maybe websites that have good Core Web Vitals scores also generally have better content?” Beus questioned, “There is therefore no final evidence, but there are strong indications due to the timing and the announcement by Google.” Additionally, each study highlighted the unusually high frequency of algorithm updates this past summer.
Optimizing Core Web Vitals with Priority Hints
While Google’s statement that SEOs “should not expect drastic changes” continues to hold up, UX remains critical for visitor satisfaction, and improving it can enhance conversion rates. To provide site owners with more control over how their pages load, Google recently introduced Priority Hints, an experimental feature available as an Origin Trial in Chrome 96+.
Priority Hints are a markup-based signal, available through the importance attribute, that allows you to tell browsers about the relative importance of a resource. This can be used to boost the priority of the LCP image, causing LCP to happen sooner and thus improve the associated metric. Conversely, you can set the importance to lower the priority of above-the-fold content that may not be as important, like additional images in a carousel.
The importance attribute can be applied to the link, img, script, and iframe tags. It can be set as “high,” “low,” or “auto” (the default value).
The Priority Hints feature is available as an Origin Trial from Chrome 96 to 99 and will run until March 22, 2022. Developers or site owners can register for it. As this is an experimental feature, its future may depend on the feedback Google receives.
Optimizing Core Web Vitals complements holistic SEO
Sites exist to serve businesses and audiences. For businesses, search rankings should only be relevant with regards to their goals, typically generating leads or conversions. While the page experience update may reward content that performs well on CWV with better rankings, “You are not going to notice it when you have other, bigger factors going on,” Johnson stated, “If you optimize your titles, you’ll see more of a lift in valuable rankings. If you are in a tie with another website then optimizing the Vitals can give you the advantage you want.”
Ultimately, the goal is to please users or potential customers, and improving your page experience via Core Web Vitals optimization can help you accomplish that, regardless of its impact on your rankings.
