What Is Page Experience? Everything You Need to Know About Google’s Update

Google’s new page experience update is pushing website owners across the globe to ask, “What is page experience?” Page experience is a description of how users experience a page and can include navigation, page speed, and accessibility.

What about Google’s page experience? Page experience from Google is a ranking factor that uses several signals to gauge a page’s experience. These signals include mobile-friendliness, page speed, and HTTPS.

Keep reading to learn more about page experience, including how to adapt to Google’s update!

What is page experience?

Page experience is an umbrella term used to describe the type of interaction users have with a page. If a user has a hard time navigating a page, finds the page layout unpleasant or unappealing, or has to wait a long time for it to load, that entails a negative page experience. Page experience essentially deals with most of the attributes of a page except content.

The actual content of the page — what information it conveys — is factored into your site’s ranking separately. Almost everything else, though, plays into page experience.

Why is page experience important?

Page experience has always been important for search engine optimization (SEO) and web design.

A badly designed page will quickly push users away, meaning you’ll have a hard time getting leads or conversions. But this year, it takes on a new importance.

What is the Google page experience update?

In May 2021, Google is rolling out a page experience update that makes it an official ranking factor in Google’s algorithms. That means a negative page experience will directly and immediately lead to lower rankings, starting in May.

How will the page experience update work?

Previously, page experience only indirectly drove SEO rankings, but in 2021,  it will become a direct ranking factor for Google. But with page experience being such a broad and arguably subjective term, how exactly will Google measure it? To judge the user experience of a page, Google will look at several key metrics and features, some of which already contribute to rankings in some form. The features that contribute to page experience in Google’s algorithm are the following:

• Largest contentful paint (LCP): LCP is a measure of page load speed. Specifically, it measures how long it takes for the largest element on a page to fully load.
• Cumulative layout shift (CLS): CLS measures how much a page’s elements move around while loading. If elements jump around the page as they load, that makes for a worse user experience.
• First input delay (FID): FID measures how quickly elements on the page respond to being clicked. If a user clicks a link, and it takes many seconds to start pulling up the linked page, that’s a problem.
• Mobile-friendliness: Mobile-friendliness refers to whether or not a page is optimized for a mobile device. Some sites only build their pages for computers, making them appear oddly structured on mobile devices. Pages should be optimized for both formats.
• HTTPS: Another important factor is whether a page is optimized with HTTPS. HTTPS ensures a secure connection for site visitors.
• Lack of intrusive interstitials: Intrusive interstitials are pop-ups and other content that appears over the content of a page on mobile devices. A page with intrusive interstitials will be ranked lower.
• Safe browsing: Google verifies that a page doesn’t contain any harmful programs like malware, or deceptive content like social engineering.

The first three of those features — LCP, CLS, and FID — are known as core web vitals. Google examines the Core Web Vitals first, and then considers the other factors like mobile-friendliness and HTTPS. Together, it uses all of them to gauge page experience.

What Page Experience signals are featured in the update?

Though Page Experience technically counts as a single ranking factor, Google breaks it down into four primary Page Experience signals. Each of these signals contributes to the overall Page Experience score that determines rankings.

Here’s an overview of each one!

1. Core Web Vitals

Page load speed has long been a major factor in Google rankings. But whereas it was previously an indirect contributor — slow-loading pages deterred users from visiting, leading to lower rankings — the Page Experience update has made page speed into a direct ranking signal.

More specifically, Google considers page speed in the form of Core Web Vitals, which consist of three major elements. Read on for a breakdown of each of the three major components of Core Web Vitals!

Largest contentful paint (LCP)

Largest contentful paint (LCP) measures how long it takes for the largest piece of content on a page to load. So, if a page features several paragraphs of text, an image, and a video — the largest of which is the video — the LCP only focuses on how long it takes for the video to load.

Google stated that you should aim to keep your LCP at 2.5 seconds or less.

First input delay (FID)

First input delay (FID) focuses on interactivity. More specifically, it measures how long it takes for a page to respond when a user clicks on something while it’s still loading.

So, let’s say you open a new page, and as it’s loading, you click on a button. The length of time it takes for the page to process that action is that page’s FID. Google indicated that it’s best to keep your FID at 100 milliseconds or less.

Cumulative layout shift (CLS)

Finally, cumulative layout shift (CLS) looks at how much your page jumps around while it’s loading. You may have encountered this before — you’re loading a page, and you’re just about to click on something, but suddenly a new element loads in above it and pushes it further down the page.

This type of jerky loading process is extremely frustrating, so naturally, Google wants to reward sites that avoid that issue. The less jerking around happens while your page loads, the happier Google will be, and the higher you’ll rank.

2. Mobile-friendliness

To an extent, mobile-friendliness was already a major Google ranking factor. That’s because Google uses a mobile-first index, meaning it ranks sites based on their mobile format. So, a site without a mobile format — or one that users didn’t like visiting on mobile — wouldn’t rank high.

With the Page Experience update, though, mobile-friendliness becomes a direct ranking factor, making it more important than ever. Google recognizes people use mobile devices for surfing the Internet now, and it wants to reward sites that are optimized for mobile.

The best way to optimize for mobile is to use responsive design, which restructures the elements on the page to fit the screen where it appears.

3. HTTPS

Next on our list of Page Experience signals is HTTPS. HTTPS is a protocol you can use on your website to help make it more secure. Many websites use a basic HTTP protocol, but since there’s no guarantee that those sites are safe, Google won’t rank them as high.

However, when Google sees that a website uses HTTPS, it recognizes that that means a better Google website experience. As such, it rewards those sites by ranking them higher in search results.

4. No intrusive interstitials

Finally, Google evaluates and ranks websites based on the presence of intrusive interstitials. Intrusive interstitials are page elements that block users from accessing other parts of the page. Generally, that refers to things like pop-ups that cover up page content.

More specifically, Google takes issue with interstitials that force users to see an ad before they can view their content. If your site features a pop-up when users start to leave a page, that shouldn’t hurt your rankings. Just don’t assault users with pop-ups before they can even view your content.

What does the Page Experience update mean for your business?

Now that we’ve covered all the page experience signals that are included in the update, it’s time to wrap things up by answering one final question: What does the Google Page Experience update mean for your company?

In short, it means you need to spend some time integrating the above elements into your SEO. A good SEO campaign should be doing most of those things already, but if your site falls short in any of those areas, be sure to reoptimize. More specifically, you can:

• Limit redirects (to improve page speeds)
• Cache web pages (to improve page speeds)
• Use responsive design
• Use HTTPS
• Avoid intrusive interstitials

If you follow each of the above steps, you shouldn’t have an issue with your page rankings going down due to Page Experience.

How can you optimize your site for page experience?

Now that you understand how the page experience update will work, what can you do to prepare for it? You don’t want the update to bump down any of your rankings, so you need to make sure the pages on your site meet all the right requirements. Here are three big ways you can optimize your site for page experience!

1. Optimize your page load speeds

When Google analyzes page experience, the first thing it looks at is page load speed. All three of the Core Web Vitals have to do with the loading time of a page. The best way to start optimizing, then, is to improve the load speeds of your pages. There are several ways you can boost your page speeds, including:

• Limiting redirects
• Minifying code
• Compressing images
• Caching web pages

When you do each of these, your pages will run much faster, providing a far better user experience. If you want to check your load times, you can use Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool to get an assessment.  

2. Implement responsive design

Another way to improve Google’s assessment of your page experience is to use responsive design. Responsive design is simply the practice of optimizing your site for multiple devices, both desktop and mobile. With responsive design, your site will structure itself to fit whatever screen it’s on. That means that not only will the visual elements be rearranged somewhat, but it will function as it’s supposed to on any device. Ideally, you’ll build in responsive design from the very start.

3. Ensure that your pages are safe and secure

Finally, do everything you can to make your website safe and secure for visitors. That means you should optimize for the security features listed earlier:

• Use HTTPS
• Protect against malware
• Avoid deceptive content

This step is particularly crucial if you run an ecommerce site. Users will want to be certain that they’re safe submitting their financial information when they want to make a purchase.

Let WebFX give your page experience a boost

Want some help getting your site geared up for Google’s page experience update? Look no further than WebFX! With over 1,100 client testimonials, we’re the agency businesses trust to drive results for their digital marketing.

With our SEO services and page speed optimization services, you can reoptimize your site to rocket upward in Google rankings, both now and after the update. You’ll also receive a dedicated account representative to keep you closely informed on everything we do for your site. To get started with us, just call 888-601-5359 or contact us online today!