It appears that today, another unconfirmed Google algorithm update has been released. There has been no confirmation from Google that an update was done, as per usual.
This continues the trend of weekly unconfirmed Google updates that we have been following.
So far, the tools look relatively average, and do not give off the vibe of a major update.
Still, there is chatter among the WebmasterWorld.com discussion forums:
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
Google Algorithm Update Still Unconfirmed
While much of the chatter above is related to the page experience update, some webmasters continue to see impacts as a result of today’s updates.
How much of an impact?
That remains to be seen. But we’ll continue to report and provide you all the relevant facts as they continue to come out.
