Google's Big Update
It's all about...Page Experience
THE JUNE 2021 GOOGLE UPDATE
In case you didn’t know, Google makes updates to its algorithm pretty regularly.
We don’t know exactly how often.
Monthly? Maybe even weekly? (They’re pretty secretive about it.)
So the general public only gets the inside scoop on the big ones.
Maybe you remember some from the past…
Google Panda in 2011 cracked down on people trying to “rook the system” with SEO. They came down hard on keyword stuffing and duplicate content.
Google Penguin was the following year in 2012. And it cracked down on bad links. As a result, people stopped paying for links.
Google Hummingbird followed in 2013 and emphasized higher quality, more lengthy content. That’s when people started taking blogging and content creation much more seriously.
“Mobilegeddon” was in 2015. And it basically said, “You better have a mobile-friendly website or else!!!”
🧸 🧸 🧸
“Bert” in 2019 was a result of voice search increasing in popularity and people searching differently than in the past. It recommended that websites use “natural language” within their content – the way that you and I would speak.
And finally now…
“The Page Experience Update.”
This update was originally scheduled for earlier this year, but is now due out later this month (June 2021). It will take about 2 months to completely deploy worldwide.
Here’s the scoop on the “Page Experience” Update
Many folks use Google Search Console to check on the health of their website. As they should. It’s a wonderful, free tool that everyone should use often.
It can tell you what URLs are indexing in Google Search Results, what keywords your pages are indexing for, if there are errors on your site, and much, much more.
With this update, Search Console now stresses regular monitoring of the new area inside of the tool called “PAGE EXPERIENCE.”
Inside of the feature, you’ll be able to identify new key areas that Google will be looking at more closely than ever as it decides what pages to rank. These four areas are:
Mobility:
Are your site and its pages mobile-friendly?
Security:
Are you making efforts to prevent your site from getting hacked or having hacked content?
HTTPS:
Does your site have an SSL certificate to provide encryption and authentication?
Ad Experience:
Do you have really crappy ads pointed to your site that are getting flagged as spam?
*As a matter of fact, this is the first time we’re seeing a direct connection between paid advertising and SEO. This update clearly indicates that poor ads will now have an effect on organic rankings, begging advertisers to be aware.
The update also revisits and refreshes the Core Web Vital signal. This encourages websites to have fast load times.
Use the tool.
Inside of it, you can identify if pages have one of three scores: 1) good, 2) needs improvement, or 3) bad.
If a URL is flagged as “needs improvement” or “bad,” it’s best to correct the errors ASAP and re-submit to Google.
If you’re planning on building a new website, make sure to keep these 5 signals in mind.
In case you’re wondering why Google Updates are important…
Google makes up more than 87% of search engine traffic worldwide. Bing is in second place. With a lousy 7%.
The second reason, most clients we deal with get the MAJORITY of their traffic from Google search. Sometimes upwards of 50-60%! Check the medium breakdown of your own traffic. What’s the percentage level? I bet it’s a lot! Organic traffic typically converts at the highest level too!
If an update messes with that organic traffic volume, it could be detrimental to your sales numbers.
So there you have it.
A bit of a breakdown on Google’s big June 2021 announcement!
Make sure you take these new signals into consideration when performing SEO work or website updates.
And, of course, if you have questions, just let us know.