Changes to Google Page Rankings – Core Web Vitals Joins Signals

Google has announced some big changes to the way that websites will now be ranked in search results. From mid-June, page speed will start to play a big part, being included in Google page experience ‘signals’, made up of:

• Core Web Vitals (CWV) measuring page speed
• Being mobile friendly
• Providing safe browsing by safeguarding against malicious or deceptive content
• Being HTTPS
• Having no intrusive interstitials (large pop ups) ensuring your site is accessible on mobile

While most of these have been contributing towards ranking scores for a while and sites are generally well prepared for them, only 13% of sites are currently measured as having ‘good’ performance. It is also worth noting that there are over 200 signals that are measured by Google to create your ranking score, but this will play a significant role and also has the positive knock-on effect of improving customer experience on your site.

What are Core Web Vitals (CWV)?

CWV are page speed metrics that Google will start including to measure and rank user experience. The new addition to the page experience signals comprises of three metrics:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – The time it takes for the largest piece of content in the viewport to load. ‘Good’ is ranked as 2.5 seconds or faster.

First Input Delay (FID) – The time it takes for a page to become interactive. ‘Good’ is ranked as 100ms or faster

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – The amount of unexpected layout shift of visual page content (think when you are on mobile and the page shifts about as it is loading, causing you to click on the wrong thing). ‘Good’ is defined as 0.1 which is score made up of two elements – impact fraction (% of total viewport space taken up by unstable content) and distance fraction (greatest distance that any unstable elements have moved on the page)

We’ve already started to ready our clients for these upcoming changes and we’d recommend you start making changes now so you have a competitive edge once changes kick in mid-June. If you’re not sure where to start, get in touch and we’d be more than happy to help!