Google Rolls Out New Changes to its Search Ranking Criteria

Published by Noor ul ain Kaludi Thursday, May 28, 2020

Google has just announced that it will add new ranking criteria for the search results. Starting from next year, it will rank webpages based on the “page experience” of the user.

If you’re not sure what “page experience” means, you’re not the only one. The exact metrics that will determine the page are still in development, and they go beyond such things as how quick the page loads on the web browser. As a user, your experience can be affected by incessant pop-ups, delays in the content, presentation of content, and other factors. Not all these factors can be judged as easily, but Google plans on working it out.
The “Top Stories” feature which shows news articles for certain search items, is also going to sport some new changes. The company is going to drop the requirement that news articles be written in the AMP format, something Google has been pushing for quite some time. Instead, any article that meets the new page experience criteria set by Google will be eligible to appear there.

Last month, Google Chrome’s technical team introduced a new project. The purpose of this project is to understand and quantify some of the hindrances and problems users face when they visit any webpage. They’re not as complicated as they sound, though.

For now, the list of metrics includes:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which will measure how long the “body” of a page takes to load. This means the main content, whether that’s text or graphics.

First Input Delay (FID), which will quantify how quickly a webpage reacts to clicks.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which will measure how content gets readjusted on a page, due to ads or other elements.

There is a chance that Google will increase the amount of metrics over time, but it needs to be pointed out that at the current stage, this does not include any ad-tracking metrics.

The new formula of judging and ranking webpages could pose some risks for the internet if websites decide to follow these certain criteria to be favored on Google Chrome above other web browsers. Right now, the metrics the Google Team has announced seem harmless but much remains to be seen.

Publishers will have to look out for these new changes too. News sites are always fighting for a spot in the coveted “Top Stories” section, and right now the criteria for their website appearing there was simply adherence to Google’s News Content policies, and the AMP format. This will obviously change soon and many publishers will have to race the clock to ensure they don’t lose their rankings.

This can be a cause for controversy, as Google is known for publishing objectively false and misleading content in the past. The news stories that appear on Google should be held up to some sort of journalistic standards. Their past rankings of news articles have already caused quite a backlash, and this move may intensify that negative image.

Google has some tools that may help web developers who are scrambling to make sure their websites are ready to face the music when the time comes. But this may not be as urgent as it seems. It could be until the end of the year before Google experiments with these metrics and any results can be gauged.

Of course, this means that the changes won’t come into effect until after the upcoming US presidential election. Google has denied that the political decisions of the country had anything to do with the timing of these changes; instead, they wanted to ensure that web developers and content developers had enough time to understand and implement the changes needed.

Google has clarified that these metrics alone will not completely affect the ranking of a webpage, but supplement the current metrics to help the algorithm around. But there’s no way to know what these changes entail exactly until they’re actually implemented.

So the SEO industry, always trying to figure out how to beat the algorithm and its lightning-fast changes, won’t be able to do anything until the changes are rolled out and tested. For now, the best plan is to just wait and see.