SEO: Core Vitals

Details on the big ranking change coming in 2020.

Table of Contents

Sometime in 2021, Google is making a big change to its algorithm, adding what it calls "Core Web Vitals" as a ranking signal. This is, at its heart, an assesment of how swiftly your page loads from a user persepective:

  • How quickly is there usable information on the page?
  • How long until I can interact with this page?

It's worth thinking of this as a more sophisticated evolution of the old page speed metric. Google is now less interested in how quickly your page load completes, and more interested in how long until the reader can do eveything they want.

This is largely likely to be a technicla challenge - but you can monitor your performance using the Core Web Vital test in Search Console.

The Core Web Vitals test in Search Console
The Core Web Vitals test in Search Console

Read More

Evaluating page experience for a better web
We’re introducing page experience as a new ranking signal that provides a holistic picture of the quality of a user’s experience on a web page.
Why Google’s Core Web Vitals update is going to hit medium-sized publishers hard
Major changes are coming to Google next year - and the technical burden of them are likely to fall disproportionatly on the middle rank of publishers.

Technical Guides

Guide to Core Web Vitals for SEOs and Developers
What you need to know about Google’s latest set of key user experience metrics for Web Developers.

Other SEO resources

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