Google earlier announced in November 2020 that the “page experience update” will go live on the Google search, later in 2021. In April 2021, Google recently announced some key updates to help publishers and site owners improve their page experience and prepare for the eventual update
The Google Search Page Experience Algorithm April 2021 Update includes
- Page Experience report in Search Console
The Page Experience report combines the existing Core Web Vitals report with other components of the page experience signals, such as HTTPS security, absence of intrusive interstitials, safe browsing status, and mobile-friendliness.
The Page Experience report provides a summary of the user experience of visitors to your site. Google evaluates page experience metrics for individual URLs on your site and will use them as a ranking signal for a URL in Google Search results on mobile devices
The page experience report will include data on Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), HTTPS, Mobile-friendliness, Safe browsing status, Absence of intrusive interstitials
2. Support for signed exchanges for all content on Google Search
Google also announced the general availability of signed exchanges (SXG) on Google Search for all web pages.Google Search previously only supported SXG built with the AMP framework.
SXG allows Google Search to leverage the privacy-preserving prefetching technique in compatible browsers, which can lead to improved page experience. This technique enables Google Search to load key resources of a page (HTML, JavaScript, CSS) ahead of navigation, which makes it possible for the browser to display pages faster.
What is included in the Google Search Page Experience Algorithm April 2021 Update:
Google announced that the the page experience update will consider several page experience signals, including the three Core Web Vitals metrics: LCP, FID, and CLS (as well as Chrome’s recent fix to CLS).
In addition, the Top Stories carousel feature on Google Search will be updated to include all news content, as long as it meets the Google News policies.
The AMP format is no longer required and that any page, irrespective of its Core Web Vitals score or page experience status,
Expansion of the usage of non-AMP content to power the core experience on news.google.com and in the Google News app.
Source: Google Search Central
