On Tuesday, Google confirmed that its Page Experience update is going to launch in May 2021 – an update all website owners will want to be prepared for.
It comes six months after the search giant first made the announcement of the update. Once it is in place, search results will take into consideration a set of “page experience signals” to evaluate a website’s user experience. These signals include several pre-existing ranking factors, such as Google’s Core Web Vitals, how mobile friendly the site is, and whether any pages contain malicious content.
Google has also announced its plans to display a “visual indicator” in search, which, when the update is live, will inform a user whether they can expect to have a good experience on a particular website. As of yet, the exact visual indicator it plans to use is uncertain, but users can expect to see some testing of different indicators in the run up to the update’s release.
Regarding the Page Experience update, Google said:
“We believe that providing information about the quality of a web page’s experience can be helpful to users in choosing the search result that they want to visit.”
While Search Engine Land expects the update to have little effect on a website ranking itself, the visual indicators Google plans to display could have an impact on a site’s clickthrough rate, as highlighted in its statement, with indicators of a bad experience potentially putting users off particular sites. While user experience should always be a priority for businesses, this update highlights the extent of its importance.
Companies now have six months to ready their websites for the update and ensure it provides a great experience for users – making now a perfect time to consider a website redesign, or to establish a web presence from scratch. If you want to take advantage of this time to prepare your business, get in touch with our team at Engage Web.
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