During a hangout, one SEO professional asked John Mueller about low page speed scores and if they can impact your rankings.
Their question was: does a low rating in terms of mobile results on Google page speed, such as LCP, FID, could this affect their website rankings after the introduction of the new page experience algorithm last summer?
They were ranking 4th around their city, then they found out they had a bad page speed rating in Core Web Vitals. Could it be that this is the problem with those rankings?
John explained that it could be. But, it’s hard to say just based on that. He thinks there’s perhaps two things to watch out for.
First, the number that they gave him sounds like PageSpeed insights scores are generated on desktop and mobile.
He thinks that they don’t use it in search for rankings. They use the Core Web Vitals, the LCP, FID, and CLS. The metrics that Google uses are based on what users on Google actually see.
John recommended that they go into Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report, and this should show whether the numbers are within good or bad ranges.
This happens at approximately the 27:25 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
SEO Professional 7 27:24
Okay, yeah. And my second question is, does a low rating mobile results on Google Page Speed, like LCP, FID, might have affected our website rank after the introduction of the new algorithm last summer? Because we were like, the fourth around my city, okay, if I check a web agency or keyword that we–so after the introduction of this algorithm, and going on Google Search Console, we find out that our disk parameters like LCP, FID for mobile has a bad rating, like 48. Not for desktop, that is 90, so it’s okay. So could this be the problem of our—?
John 28:24
Could be. It’s hard to say just based on that. So I think that there’s maybe two things to watch out for. The number that you gave me sounds like the Page Speed Insights score that is generated, I think on desktop and mobile. Kind of that number from zero to 100 I think. Yeah, yeah. We don’t use that in search for the rankings. We use the Core Web Vitals, where there is LCP, FID and CLS I think, and those are based on– the metrics that we use are based on what users actually see. So if you go into Search Console, there’s the Core Web Vitals report, and that should show you those numbers if it’s within good or bad, kind of in those ranges.
SEO Professional 7 29:26
But if I go on Google Search Console on Core Web Vitals, okay? It said to me, that the data served from the night last 90 days are not enough for this type of device.
John 29:48
Okay, then in that case, it’s not due to that. So we have to have enough data that we can collect from users to be able to understand the status of the Core Web Vitals for the site. But especially for smaller sites, we might not have enough data. And then we would not use that as a factor there. So even if the Page Speed Insights score is bad, that isn’t something that we would use, we would only use it if we really have data from users that tell us that it’s actually slow in practice. So I would use that score as a way to kind of prepare for when you have more traffic and have those numbers, but it wouldn’t be the reason why your website would drop.
SEO Professional 7 30:37
Okay. So we have to find the reason in another way. Okay, I understand. Thank you very much.
