After first charting its new ‘Core Web Vitals’ metrics this year in May, Google has now verified that these elements will influence search rankings as of May 2021. With these metrics added, get ready to add new considerations for your SEO approach.
In short, to maximise your search rankings, you will need to keep into account these new elements listed below to keep your page in the top results.
· Mobile-friendliness
· Safe-browsing
· HTTPS-security
· Intrusive interstitial guidelines
The purpose of introducing Core Web Vitals was to enable the user to measure the speed, responsiveness, and visual stability of a page. in addition to this, these updates will also combine existing UX-related signals.
Precisely, the following three elements are defined as the Core Web Vitals:
· Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This element measures loading performance and how fast the vital visual parts of your pages become available for the user after clicking through. Simply put, the page loading time. Ideally, LCP measurement should be 2.5 seconds or faster.
· First Input Delay (FID): The element measures the time it takes for a page to become interactive for the users. An ideal measurement is less than 100 ms.
· Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): This element measures the visual stability. Ideally, the measurement is less than 0.1.
However, these Core Web Vitals are subject to change yearly, based on user expectations.
New Labels in Search Results
Google is planning to add labels and is working on visual indicators to add to identify pages. The tags will mark all the pages that have met the page experience criteria that has been mentioned ahead.
The lab tests are under process, and in case of successful results, you can expect to witness these changes in May 2021 alongside the page experience update.
However, according to a study conducted, there are less than 15% sites that will be qualifying according to the criteria of Core Web Vitals assessment. Many site owners are acting tirelessly to prepare their pages to meet the requirements.
There also has been an increase in using the Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report to identify opportunities for improvement by many users.
Non-AMP Content in Top Stories Carousel
In another announcement, Google mentioned that non-AMP pages would become entitled to appear in Top Stories in May 2021.
Both of these updates are expected to roll out together by the mid of next year. All the pages that will be meeting the Google News content policies criteria will qualify to appear in the Top Stories carousel, and pages that offer a superior experience will be prioritised in ranking as well.
Google notes that it will continue to support AMP content in Google Search the same way it currently does.