Google’s Page Experience Update May 2021

Google’s Page Experience Update May 2021.
The Page Experience update, launching May 2021, is the next official step in that direction. Google has described the Page Experience update as “a set of signals that measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page beyond its pure information value,” adding a set of 3 new signals to the algorithm, which means a better ranking for website’s that are fast, easy to use, and designed well.

Google is pushing off the rollout timeline for this update to “help you continue to make refinements to your website with page experience in mind,” the company said.

Google has even mentioned adding “visual indicators” to pages with a great page experience score right to the search engine results pages. This wouldn’t just affect your rankings, but organic click-through rates could take a hit, as well!

Page experience refers to the experience your user has on a page and the factors that affect it.

The existing signals that Google uses to perceive a user’s experience include the site speed, mobile-friendliness, whether the site provides a safe browsing experience, runs on HTTPS, and more. And now, Google is adding three more page experience signals to reward those sites that provide a good user experience.

In recent years, user experience has had more of a focus by web developers and website owners – and rightly so. In fact, studies have shown that longer page load times have a significant effect on bounce rates. For example:

> If page load time increases from 1 second to 3 seconds, the bounce rate increases 32%.
> If page load time increases from 1 second to 6 seconds, the bounce rate increases by 106%.
> So having a full understanding of page experience signals, and how they can impact your rankings is a must for both SEO and overall success.

Google said with this rollout and this new Google update, do not expect drastic changes. “While this update is designed to highlight pages that offer great user experiences, page experience remains one of many factors our systems take into account. Given this, sites generally should not expect drastic changes,” said Google.