How Core Web Vitals will affect your website ranking on Google

July 02, 2021 | 7 min read

1. QuickRead

Google modifies its Core Algorithm, the core building block that run Google’s search engine, a few times every year. Every update Google makes is intended to improve user experiences, but these changes may throw websites and SEO professionals for a loop and have a significant impact on search engine results pages (or affectionately named, the SERP).

While we spend a lot of time working on keyword optimization, mobile experience, and backlinks, Google prioritizes on-page experience. As a result, they’ve released a new collection of signals known as Core Web Vitals. These signals will consider the page loading speed, responsiveness, and visual stability of a website.

In this article, we’ll try to understand what Core Web Vitals are and how they might affect your rankings.

2. Why is Google making these updates?

Most websites are falling behind as user expectations rise to higher and higher standards. In terms of optimization, it is Google’s job to optimize its search engine for users, and it is the role of SEO professionals to optimize for both search engines and users to guarantee that web pages rank and reach relevant searchers. With this in mind, Google’s improvements are merely a signal to the digital community that it is time to start emphasizing user experience. And there are several benefits to doing so: according to Google, if a website complies with these new criteria, users are 24 percent less likely to quit the site.

3. What are core web vitals

The Core Web Vitals are a set of parameters that Google considers vital for page experience. Google stated in May 2020 that page experience signals will be incorporated in SERP results and that Google would begin assessing mobile-friendliness, secure surfing, HTTPS security, and the absence of invasive interstitials (pop-ups) to encourage and favor better user experiences.

In November 2020, Google introduced three new page experience signals known as the Core Web Vitals. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) are the three vitals that will be incorporated in Google’s SERP ranking algorithm beginning in mid-June 2021.

These are the Core Web Vitals, as defined by Google:

Largest Contentful Paint: The amount of time it takes for the primary content of a page to load. The optimum LCP measurement time is 2.5 seconds or less.
First Input Delay (FID): The time it takes for a page to become interactive after receiving the first input. A perfect measurement is less than 100 milliseconds.
Cumulative Layout Shift: The amount of unexpected visual page content layout shift. A perfect measurement would be less than 0.1 sec.

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4. Factors determining the quality of a “page experience” on Google

The following elements influence the quality of a “page experience” on Google:

Mobile-friendly: The page has been optimized for mobile browsing.
Safe browsing: There is no misleading information or harmful malware on this page.
HTTPS: You’re using HTTPS to serve the page.
No obtrusive: There are no issues on the page that interfere with the core content.
Core Web Vitals: The page loads quickly and focuses on aspects of interaction and visual stability.

Many websites already include these elements, and if you are one of them, you have nothing to worry about.

5. How will these vitals affect my website ranking?

Based on what the vital is measuring, each Core Web Vital has its own dimension of scoring. To pass Google’s Core Web Vitals and rank for user experience, your site must receive a “Good” rating in all three areas. If a page fails, it risks losing its ability to appear in organic search since Google’s algorithm may eventually rank more useful pages above it.

The impact of this change will be minimal at first for all sites, but it is expected to grow over time as more websites embrace Google’s best practices for complying with its Core Web Vitals. Having said that, certain verticals will be struck more forcefully than others. For example, websites that monetize their content, such as news sites, will face a steeper hill to climb due to all of the ad placements stacked into their content. Websites with simpler or fewer materials will be unaffected as much.

Google hopes to assist more site owners in creating pages that people like visiting by using Core Web Vitals as ranking criteria and integrating them with other user experience signals. If Google judges that a page provides a high-quality user experience based on its page experience signal, the page will most likely rank higher in search results. However, when it comes to rankings, content relevancy is still quite essential. A page with highly relevant content to a query may score well even if it has a low page experience signal.

As Google points out, the opposite is also true:

“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.”

As Google says, a page experience indicator acts as a type of tie-breaker. In other words, if two pages both have excellent content, the one with a better page experience signal will rank higher in search results. So, don’t get so caught up in optimizing for page experience that you neglect the actual content on the page. In theory, great content may outrank a fantastic page experience.

6. How to measure core web vitals?

When it comes to measuring Core Web Vitals, SEOs and site owners can utilize a number of Google tools, such as:

Search Console: Web developers and SEO professionals may use the search console to obtain Core Web Vitals information in order to assess the performance of a page. Using this report, it is simple to discover all of the pages that require care. URLs must be avoided since they can be omitted when just the most basic reporting data is available.
PageSpeed Insights: You may obtain a comprehensive analysis of the page content and determine whether or not you can make modifications to optimize it. You may also get recommendations on how to speed up the page.
Lighthouse: It’s an excellent professional tool for assessing website performance. It may also be used as a plugin in many web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and others. The user experience may be enhanced by website developers.
Chrome DevTools: With the aid of this application, it is simple to address visual instability concerns. Instability problems can lead to CLS if they are not addressed (Cumulative Layout Shift). If you wish to see the shifting placement, you may drag the Layout shift to any field.
Chrome UX report: The Chrome UX report may be used to assess all field versions. With this study, one may focus on a better user experience by analyzing a large dataset including numerous websites. You can obtain genuine data rather than laboratory data.

7. Conclusion

Core Web Vitals and SEO are inextricably linked, and we all know that we can’t afford to neglect anyone ranking element if we want to outperform our competitors and maintain our ranks.

Do we know how much influence core web vitals have on our ranks? We don’t have any. However, Google is putting a lot more emphasis on the on-page experience.

Every website owner should be aware of the latest Google algorithm upgrade, referred to as Core Web Vitals. When a visitor views a website, the major goal is to focus on the user experience. To get your website to the top of the search results, you must develop fresh SEO tactics.

You can contact us to acquire these services in order to improve your site’s user experience. We are experts in boosting your site’s ranking and assisting you in interacting with your visitors.