The wait is finally over. Depending on your disposition towards Gutenberg, you may be excited, appalled or neutral. In any event, Gutenberg 10.1 has been released. This release represents significant upgrades designed to address Core Web Vitals, fundamental elements of Google’s upcoming May 2021 page experience update.
The Latest Version of Gutenberg is Here
At long last. WordPress has announced the release of Gutenberg 10.1.
This is important because the original version of WordPress Gutenberg was filled with code bloat which negatively impacted Core Web Vitals. What the announcement from WordPress leaves out is that this release has the features that SEO practitioners everywhere have been clamoring for. Namely, the significant improvements in core web vitals.
Google’s Upcoming Page Experience Update
You may have noticed that we have been covering Google’s page experience update extensively, and for good reason: the page experience update is set to become a significant milestone in Google’s algorithm update history. This update will prioritize sites that have a high page speed rating.
However, Google is also on record as saying that they are still looking at core quality metrics like content, links and technical SEO.
Danny Sullivan has also previously clarified that this shouldn’t be a massive update and should not result in chaos.
With WordPress’ latest update, there are code changes that make a marked difference and will directly complement Google’s upcoming page experience update.
What is WordPress Gutenberg?
Gutenberg is WordPress’ new block editor. It’s designed to make the writing process easier. However, with the platform’s new editor, it has also added several undesirable bugs, including bloated code. This revolution will enable webmasters to have much faster sites while also remaining in line with Google’s expectations.
Gutenberg-Specific Code Issues That Were Repaired
Whenever a block is loaded into WordPress, there are specific style codes that are loaded alongside it. These codes dictate the appearance of that block and how it may behave.
This kind of code bloat can cause significant issues with page experience. It can even cause pages to load so slowly that they do not pass Google’s Core Web Vitals tests.
For WordPress users, this meant that you had things stacked against you in terms of code. No matter what you did with the theme, you always had Gutenberg working against you.
The New Gutenberg Update Addresses These Issues
WordPress mentioned that they decided to defer the loading of the style code that was necessary for those blocks on a page.
The result is a significant improvement in your page speed metrics.
WordPress mentioned how they were able to accomplish this:
This is a Welcome Improvement For WordPress
As things continue to progress with WordPress’ Gutenberg editor, it will be interesting to see how websites’ page speed is impacted.
The signs of progress are most definitely there: WordPress is continuing to take a load off of developers who are expected to maintain their WordPress’ backend. For you, this means you’ll have more time to ensure that your SEO is up to speed (no pun intended).
