In recent weeks there has been a lot of talk online and on social media after an article was posted discussing Google’s move to retire Mobile-Friendly, Page Speed, Secure Sites and Page Experience as Ranking Systems.
On the back of this, some were questioning what this means for SEO professionals and especially those of us working in tech SEO.
In reality, nothing changes
All this means is they are being retired as individual ranking systems, but they are still incorporated into Google’s algorithms.
Page experience, mobile friendliness, load time, HTTP security and other factors all still matter. This change just means that they want people to stop placing such a huge emphasis on the scores that some of these tools may provide.
Just because a website has a good score on Core Web Vitals doesn’t mean it will definitely rank #1 on Google. There are many, many factors at play that contribute to this.
In my opinion, Google has retired these as ranking systems to stop some individuals and companies from basing their whole business and organic efforts around trying to get a perfect score.
Websites will always need good technical foundations to help them perform well, and we will always need websites to load quickly. But they should load quickly as this benefits users, not because it results in a score of 100/100.
Site Speed Still Matters
Instead of thinking about it in terms of a score, think about site speed in terms of how well your website performs compared to others.
So, while the site may be slow to load, think about how it performs versus others in the market and websites that are ranking well in the niche.
If you are testing these areas as part of a technical audit, don’t just place site speed as a top issue, as you may have done previously. If the site loads faster than its competitors focus on other factors that are more likely to provide a better user experience.
User experience is what matters
A good user experience leads to more conversions, and a good experience means better organic performance.
Providing a good user experience could be due to activities such as better-optimised content so that users can find the answers they need quickly.
Another route could be to reorganise the structure to be more logical and easier to navigate.
If you have been approaching your SEO holistically, nothing changes.
But, if you have been focusing your efforts on getting a good score, then you may need to rethink your approach.
