Google has recently made significant updates to its ranking systems guide, resulting in the removal of several page experience-related ranking systems. Among those removed are the page experience system, mobile-friendly system, page speed system, and the secure site system. This has led to questions about the relevance of these algorithm updates in Google’s overall ranking system.
Upon comparing the live page with the archived page, Google has entirely removed the page experience system from the page without moving it to the “retired” systems section. In addition, the mobile-friendly page speed and secure site systems have been removed from the retired section of the page. The rationale behind these changes can be traced back to a recent update in Google’s helpful content guidance, which now includes page experience. Simultaneously, Google removed the page experience report and the mobile usability report from its Search Console.
In a blog post discussing these changes, Google explained:
“The page experience update was a concept to describe a set of key page experience aspects for site owners to focus on. In particular, it introduced Core Web Vitals as a new signal that our core ranking systems considered, along with other page experience signals such as HTTPS that they’d already been considering. It was not a separate ranking system, and it did not combine all these signals into one single ‘page experience’ signal.”
Google emphasises that the page experience update was always a “concept” rather than a “separate ranking system.” As a result, it is suggested that these previous ranking updates, which were heavily promoted at the time of their launch, may not have been true ranking systems. In fact, it appears that these updates had little to no impact on actual rankings.
Google’s changes reinforce the idea that the primary focus should be on content and engagement for SEO and ranking purposes rather than other specific metrics. While other factors are crucial for user satisfaction and usability, they may not have held as much weight in Google’s ranking system as others have previously thought.
If you’d like to discuss any of these topics in more detail, please get in touch.