Google recently announced that Core Web Vitals (CWV) are becoming ranking factors for organic search results (commonly referred to as SEO1) from May 2021. While the vast majority of the elements contained within Core Web Vitals are existing factors, the framework itself is an update on top of the existing user experience (UX) related signals. Below is an overview of the CWV as well as existing UX related signals which can impact your ranking for organic search:
The Core Web Vitals (CWV) are:
Loading – Largest contentful paint: The time it takes for a page’s main content to load (An ideal LCP measurement is 2.5 seconds or faster)
Interactivity – First input delay: The time it takes for a page to become interactive (An ideal measurement is less than 100 ms.)
Visual stability– Cumulative layout shift: The amount of unexpected layout shift of visual page content (An ideal measurement is less than 0.1)
All Response Media viewpoint
CWV were introduced at the end of 2020 and are designed to measure how a user experiences speed, responsiveness, and visual stability of a webpage. In addition to this, Google may also add labels for organic search results that indicate which results provide a good page experience for the user. Google is supposedly also working on visual indicators to identify pages that have met all the page experience criteria listed in the above points.
As an agency, we are already well-versed in CWV and there isn’t anything inherently new in terms of the Google update, but more of a framework to ensure best practice, which we already follow as an agency. We, therefore, see CWV as a best practice guide from Google for web and SEO practitioners to follow when building websites and making sure those websites are fast and accessible.
In terms of ranking factors, speed, and best coding/layout practices have been important for a long time. The main shift is simply that Google has given this an official name. We are therefore able to draw support from the ARM SEO/CRO team if there are any concerns in terms of CWV and please feel free to reach out to your client team if you need advice on the subject.
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