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Google’s Core Web Vitals to Become Ranking Signals

Google announces an upcoming change to search rankings that will incorporate Core Web Vitals as a ranking signal.

“The page experience signal measures aspects of how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page. Optimizing for these factors makes the web more delightful for users across all web browsers and surfaces, and helps sites evolve towards user expectations on mobile.”

Google is introducing a new ranking signal, which combines Core Web Vitals with existing user experience signals, to improve the way it evaluates the overall experience provided by a page.

This new ranking signal is in the early stages of development is not scheduled to launch until at least next year.

To help site owners prepare, Google has provided an early look at the work being done so far.

The New ‘Page Experience’ Signal

The upcoming ranking signal will be known as the page experience signal.

The page experience signal consists of the Core Web Vitals, as well as these existing page experience metrics:

Mobile-friendliness
Safe-browsing
HTTPS-security
Intrusive interstitial guidelines

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals, introduced earlier this month, are a set of metrics related to speed, responsiveness, and visual stability.

Google has defined these as the Core Web Vitals:

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.
First Input Delay: The time it takes for a page to become interactive. An ideal measurement is less than 100 seconds.
Cumulative Layout Shift: The amount of unexpected layout shift of visual page content. An ideal measurement is less than 0.1.

This set of metrics was designed to help site owners measure the user experience they’re providing when it comes to loading, interactivity, and visual stability.

Core Web Vitals are not set in stone – which means they may change from year to year depending on what users expect out of a good web page experience.

For now, the Core Web Vitals are what is listed above. Google will certainly update the public if and when these metrics change.

For more details about Core Web Vitals, see our full report from when they were first introduced.

Page Experience Signal & Ranking

By adding Core Web Vitals as ranking factors, and combining them with other user experience signals, Google aims to help more site owners build pages that users enjoy visiting.

If Google determines that a page is providing a high-quality user experience, based on its page experience signal, then it will likely rank the page higher in search results.

However, content relevance is still considered important when it comes to rankings. A page with content that’s highly relevant to a query could conceivably rank well even if it had a poor page experience signal.

The opposite is also true, as Google states:

“A good page experience doesn’t override having great, relevant content. However, in cases where there are multiple pages that have similar content, page experience becomes much more important for visibility in Search.”

As Google mentions, a page experience signal is a tie-breaker of sorts. Meaning if there are two pages both providing excellent content, the one with the stronger page experience signal will rank higher in search results.

So don’t get so hung up on optimizing for page experience that the actual content on the page starts to suffer. Great content can, in theory, outrank a great page experience.

Evaluating Page Experience

As of yet, there is no specific tool for evaluating page experience as a whole.

Although it is possible to measure the individual components that go into creating the page experience signal.

Measuring Core Web Vitals

When it comes to measuring Core Web Vitals, SEOs and site owners can use a variety of Google’s own tools such as:

Search Console
PageSpeed Insights
Lighthouse
Chrome DevTools
Chrome UX report
And more

Soon a plugin for the Chrome browser will also be available to quickly evaluate the Core Web Vitals of any page you’re looking at. Google is also working with third-parties to bring Core Web Vitals to other tools.

Measuring other user experience signals

Here’s how SEOs and site owners can measure the other type of user experience signals:

Mobile-friendliness: Use Google’s mobile-friendly test.
Safe-browsing: Check the Security Issues report in Search Console for any issues with safe browsing.
HTTPS: If a page is served over a secure HTTPS connection then it will display a lock icon in the browser address bar.
Intrusive interstitial guidelines: This one is a bit trickier. Contact Us to what counts as an intrusive interstitial.

When Will These Changes Happen?

There is no need to take immediate action, Google says, as these changes will not happen before next year.

Google will provide at least 6 months’ notice before they are rolled out.

The company is simply giving site owners a heads up in an effort to keep people informed about ranking changes as early as possible.

Source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-core-web-vitals-ranking-signal/370719/

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2020/05/evaluating-page-experience.html

25 Apr

GOOGLE CHROME TO FLAG SITES WITHOUT SSL CERTIFICATES AND HTTPS AS INSECURE

Over the last two years, rumors have swirled over Google’s position concerning forcing the move to HTTPS encryption.

Last year, Google began officially warning website owners that non HTTPS sites would incur consumer messaging that identified the site as non-secure.

Google says SSL Certificates on Your Website Are Required

The exact “when’ and the “how,” however, have eluded site owners up until early this year.

On February 8th, Google made clear its intentions to formally mark websites lacking SSL Certificates (the certificate which once installed on the website results in an HTTPS secure URL string) as insecure.

Google have also disclosed, as of July 2018, how they would alert web surfers of the non-HTTPS status, or not secure.

Sites that remain on the HTTP non-secure protocol will be flagged with a warning in the URL bar of the surfer’s browser.

The non-secure flag will be built into the release of Chrome 68.

Here’s an example, as posted per Google, of difference in URL optics between HTTP and HTTPS encryption websites:

It is possible that the flag could stand out by use of the color red.

Google followed up this by stating that the web’s transition to HTTPS, which is also identified as “making the web safer,” by disclosing numbers supporting HTTPS growth and scale.

” Over 68% of Chrome traffic on both Android and Windows is now protected
” Over 78% of Chrome traffic on both Chrome OS and Mac is now protected
” 81 of the top 100 sites on the web use HTTPS by default

HTTPS encryption growth shows that most site owners are taking Google’s warnings seriously.

However, it remains that a large group of site owners has been less than motivated to make the change.

This adaptive lag is likely a result of confusion over what HTTPS encryption is, the annual cost associated with HTTPS encryption maintenance, and general laziness.

WHAT IS AN SSL CERTIFICATE?

An SSL certificate is a security certificate that once installed on a web server activates a secure connection between the browser the surfer is viewing the content on and the web server that the content is derived from initially.

The website’s URL protocol will change from HTTP to HTTPS. Currently, a security padlock will also be present in the URL as a way to further signal the status of the website’s Google SSL certificate.

SSL certificates help the web cut down on instances of cybercrime that are often performed through security loopholes in web browsers.

If the connection between the surfer’s web browser and web server are not secure through an SSL connection, a moderately skilled hacker could seize information, such as credit card numbers, as it is being typed into a form on an unsecured website.

Are you looking to install an SSL certificate on WordPress?

Why are Google SSL Requirements Important?

Establishes Trust and Builds Brand Power
Provides Encryption of Sensitive Information
Provides Authentication

Non HTTPS sites and Google SEO – Why You Need To Adapt

For site owners who have lagged on adapting their site to HTTPS encryption, time is indeed running out.

google chrome browser marking a website insecure

Non HTTPS sites, Google Chrome warning

Google does not necessarily admit that non-HTTPS encrypted sites are at a handicap in its infamous search algorithm.

It is relatively safe to assume that a security warning on a website could lead to drastic fallout.

For example, it could decrease the time consumers spend on the site, the bounce rate, and eventually, the click rate on the SERPs. All of these factors would contribute to decreased search engine rankings.

Google is not only the largest search directory in the world, but they also have the most used web browser online.

In fact, Google Chrome is leaps and bounds more used than any other web browser, according to this month’s Stat Counter.

Googles leading role in both search directory and browser use mean that they yield enormous power when it comes to changes such as flagging non-HTTPS sites.

SSL Cost – Certificates Available

Does google sell ssl certificates? No.

A good cost-effective SSL certificate needed to convert your site to HTTPS start from $245 annually. The easiest place to buy one is with your hosting company. Contact us here to inquire about the SSL certificate for your website

Final Words About Being Prepared and Staying Secure

Any legitimate ecommerce platforms, shopping carts, and merchant banking processors already expect that websites be secured with SSL/ HTTPS.

Non HTTPS websites will undoubtedly be exposed to the risk of lost search rankings and overall, less traffic.

source: https://seoexpertbrad.com/google-ssl-certificates-https/

google: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6073543?hl=en

05 Apr

What is Google AMP pages and why use it?

AMP is an open source project designed to help web publishers create mobile optimized content that loads instantly on any device. According to Google’s statement, the idea is to deliver webpages with rich content like video, animations and graphics to work alongside smart ads, and to load instantaneously. Google also wants the same code to work across multiple platforms and devices so that content can appear everywhere in an instant — no matter what type of phone, tablet or mobile device you’re using. Google’s goal with AMP is to deliver the best possible mobile experience to its users no matter what device they use.

Why AMP is so important and what are the benefits of AMP?

The primary goal is to aim for faster, more engaging mobile web experience in an open ecosystem.

While AMP is flexible, responsive and can be used to build entire sites, it doesn’t support all pages and user experiences. It’s primarily designed for publishing and content sites. It’s currently not as well-suited, for example, to e-commerce experiences.
It’s no surprise that one of the main benefits of website pages developed with AMP is that the pages load like lightning on mobile devices. This is vital since studies show that mobile users usually abandon a website that takes longer than 3 seconds to load; therefore, businesses that adopt AMP could benefit from mobile abandonment rates going down and conversions possibly going up.

Although AMP is not yet meant to be a standalone ranking factor, mobile friendliness and page load speed times are well known ranking factors. As AMP greatly improves page loading times and mobile friendliness it is highly likely that a website developed with AMP will be rewarded with higher rankings than slower and unresponsive sites.

Here are the necessary steps on how to implement AMP pages on your website.

01 Apr

How can I Make AMP Work for my WordPress Site?

Here’s where things get interesting because you can actually integrate AMP to your WordPress website with just a few steps.

Install the AMP WordPress plugin
Activate the plugin – what it will do is append /amp on all your pages but what it won’t do is redirect mobile visitors to your /amp pages
So the next step is to edit your .htaccess file – you could use an FTP program to do this.
Lastly, you will want to edit the CSS to make your Accelerated Mobile Pages look and feel more like your site.

Need help setting up AMP with your website? Give us a call today at 855-225-4535