Google has updated the page experience help documentation to clarify how Core Web Vitals metrics are used as a ranking signal. Google also clarified that other page experience signals are not used directly for ranking purposes in Google Search.
What Google wrote. The updated documentation is at classification section of the document and now says:
Our ranking systems use Core Web Vitals. We recommend that site owners achieve good Core Web Vitals to be successful with search and to ensure a great overall user experience. Note that performing well in reports such as Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report or third-party tools does not guarantee that your pages will rank at the top of Google Search results; There’s more to page experience than just Core Web Vitals scores. These scores are meant to help you improve your site for your users in general, and trying to get a perfect score just for SEO reasons might not be the best use of your time.
It used to say:
There are many aspects to the page experience, including some that are listed on this page. While not all aspects can be directly used to inform ranking, they generally align with search ranking success and deserve attention.
So you can see that Google clearly says again that Core Web Vitals are used in Google’s search ranking system. But Google added: “Trying to get a perfect score just for SEO reasons may not be the best use of your time.” This implies that this score for ranking purposes is very light compared to other ranking signals.
Google also added:
Beyond Core Web Vitals, other aspects of the page experience don’t directly help your website rank higher in search results. However, they can make your website more satisfying to use, which is generally aligned with what our ranking systems aim to reward. So it’s still worth working on to improve the overall page experience.
It used to say:
We highly recommend that site owners achieve good Core Web Vitals to be successful with search and to ensure a great overall user experience. However, a great page experience involves more than Core Web Vitals. Good statistics from the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console or third-party Core Web Vitals reports do not guarantee a good ranking.
So Google clearly says that other page experience signals are not used in Google’s ranking system, at least not directly.
Core Web Vitals updated. As we noted on Sunday, the new INP metric has replaced FID as the primary web vitals metric today. That said, as noted above, these are very light signals and you may be better off focusing your SEO efforts in other areas before focusing on Core Web Vitals.
Why we care Google told us months ago that Google Page Experience was never a ranking “system,” but it’s still considered a ranking “signal,” Google search chief Danny Sullivan said this morning . These statements caused a lot of confusion, so Google clarified them in the updated documentation.
Additionally, Google’s John Mueller posted this morning at LinkedIn about Core Web Vitals saying “it won’t make your site rank higher”.
Hat tip to Glenn Gabe discovering this and notifying me of the change.
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