What You Need to Respond to the Google Page Experience Update in 2022

By David Freudenberg

AUGUST 2021 IS THE MONTH Google changed forever—that is, if you own a website. The Google page experience update rolled out for mobile devices, shocking business owners who were not prepared.

Google announced that the update was coming, but few were prepared. An analysis of 5 million desktop and mobile pages before the update found the average time it takes a website to load on mobile is 27.3 seconds. John Mueller, senior webmaster trends analyst at Google, says the best practice is to have your website load in two to three seconds. With an average load time of 27.3 seconds on mobile, websites were not even close to being prepared.

Websites that did not prepare lost tons of traffi c and money. Now Google announced the page

experience update is coming to desktop

devices in February 2022. Once again, websites are not prepared. The average load time of websites on desktop devices is 10.3 seconds— still a far cry from the Google recommended two to three seconds.

How to respond to the 2022 update

What can you do to adjust your website in response to this update? The answer is to make adjustments based on what we know from the last one. Page experience for desktop devices uses the same ranking factors that infl uenced the last page experience update for mobile. These ranking factors are: • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). • First Input Delay (FID). • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). • HTTPS security. • Absence of intrusive interstitials.

Measure the performance of your website’s page experience ranking factors by using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.

How to improve your website’s LCP

Largest Contentful Paint is a metric used by Google’s Core Web Vitals to measure the time it takes for the content on the page to fi rst become visible. Excellent user experience starts at an LCP of two seconds or less.

Websites with a slow LCP could be improved by making the following adjustments: • Increase the speed of server response times. • Defer any noncritical JavaScript and CSS. • Optimize resource-heavy elements aff ecting load time.

How to improve your website’s FID

First Input Delay is a metric used by Google’s Core Web Vitals to measure the time it takes a page to respond when someone clicks on the page. Google-owned web.dev recommends that a website’s FID load in 100 milliseconds or less.

Heavy JavaScript is the most common issue for websites with a slow FID. When the browser of your website is busy loading JavaScript, it cannot respond to user interactions, causing a negative user experience. Help the browser load JavaScript faster to improve the FID: • Use code-splitting to break up long JavaScript execution tasks. • Optimize the interaction readiness of the page.

How to improve your website’s CLS

Cumulative Layout

Shift is a metric used by Google’s Core Web Vitals to measure how visually stable a page is when someone clicks on it. For example, when someone clicks a link in the navigation bar, the content may shift unexpectedly before loading the new page. The ideal CLS load time is 0.1 seconds or less.

Website issues are the most common causes of CLS when visiting a website, the No. 1 cause being ads and images that lack dimensions. Use width and height attributes for your images and videos. Using these attributes ensures the browser can allocate the necessary space while the image is loading. Eliminate CLS when using ads by following these best practices: • Statically reserve space for the ad slot. • Be careful when placing non-sticky ads around the top of the viewport. • Avoid collapsing the reserved space when the ad slot is visible by the placeholder. • Use historical data to place the most likely size for the ad slot. • Remove the largest possible size for the ad.

Downloading and rendering web fonts can also cause a layout shift. Try using the Font Loading API to reduce its time to acquire fonts and minimize this occurrence.

How to improve your website’s HTTPS security How to improve a website with intrusive interstitials

Anything that pops up on the screen hindering the user from using the website is an intrusive interstitial—for instance, a call to action to join an email list or a banner advertisement. Google considers intrusive interstitials a negative experience for users. Removing interstitials could increase your rankings and traffi c on Google.

As Google ushers in the page experience update for desktop devices from February to March 2022, your website will respond better by following these best practices. Remember, websites that do not prepare get left behind during a Google update. Don’t risk your brand’s traffi c and revenue by failing to prepare for this new update. www.adweek.com/performance-marketing/ what-you-need-to-prepare-for-the-google-pageexperience-update-in-2022 Image credit: waterscapetech.com , binaryfountain.com

from a negative experience. For this reason, Google made HTTPS security a ranking factor for the page experience update. Install an SSL certifi cate for HTTPS security to protect your website’s user experience.