Google’s Search Off the Record podcast covered the topic of Core Web Vitals (CWV), noting that while it’s a ranking factor, it’s not so important that improving it improves search visibility. The podcast explains how to reconcile how CWV can be a ranking factor and at the same time not something that significantly helps ranking.
The actual user experience of the website is more important than CWV
Rick Viscomi (Engineer and Web Performance Manager at Google) and Lizzi Sassman (Senior Technical Writer at Google) downplayed the low Core Web Vitals scores, emphasizing that what really matters is how real users experience the site web.
Lizzi Sassman said she tested the Core Web Vitals scores for the Google Page Experience documentation and got different scores. He shared that Google’s documentation on Page Experience only scored a 45 (on a scale of 1-100).
Rick Viscomi responded that the actual user experience of browsing the website matters more than ratings.
Explained:
“… I think this is such a common cause of confusion because developers see a single number and it’s red.
it’s scary Do I need to panic?
I get this question all the time and I say, “What really matters is what your real users are experiencing.”
Most of the search community has gotten the memo about not worrying about CWV scores. They’re great for benchmarking performance in terms of sales optimization, ad clicks, and conversions, which is where a good user experience literally pays off.
CWV improvements not visible in search
This next part sounds contradictory, but it makes more sense when read in context. John Mueller states that CWV is used in classification systems. But in the next breath he says that incremental improvements in CWV scores won’t be noticed in search results.
The context is that Mueller’s team talked to the search team and discovered that CWV is used in “ranking systems or in search systems” and that’s why it’s reflected in Google’s documentation.
“…we say we use it in our ranking systems or search systems.”
Mueller then added that achieving perfect CWV scores won’t make a difference in search results. He explained that what is missing from this statement is that CWV as a ranking factor is a part of a larger ranking engine and how it is applied is not something that Google talks about.
Explained:
“I think a big problem, too, is that site owners sometimes focus too much on metrics… And then they spend months of time working on it. And they see it because they’re doing something for their search rankings. And many of these incremental changes are probably not actually visible in Search.”
And this is the part where it says that the details of how CWV is used as a ranking factor is the part that is withheld from SEOs and publishers.
“The details we tend not to go into. We don’t go into thresholds or anything like that. Just like we don’t talk about how many words on a page you should have or all those details, which, from my point of view view, they are almost secondary”.
Therefore, the conclusion is not that CWV is a ranking factor. The bottom line is that it’s good to improve CWV, but a perfect CWV will not be rewarded with better rankings.
Conceptualization of Core Web Vitals
This next part is interesting because they re-emphasize the importance of speed in the broadest and most general sense (the forest) and then zoom in on the narrower sense of classification where they talk about factors that really make a difference.
Performance is generally good. Other factors are good in the narrowest sense of the classification.
Rick Viscomi explains how web performance matters in a broader general sense:
“It’s very good for everyone and a rising tide lifts all boats. Check your website. Do it faster. Eat your vegetables.”
Lizzi Harvey then advises that a better use of time is to focus on content quality, which is the narrow focus of improving rankings.
She commented:
“Yeah, focusing on that and still having a terrible article like the words on the page aren’t good or the design isn’t good and you’ve done it really fast. Well. That’s really going to make an improvement for users or for the search?”
Two ways to view basic web vitals
I don’t think Search Off the Record planned to talk about CWV as a broader general concern and content as a more specific ranking-focused factor. But that’s how the podcast naturally turned out, and it makes sense to conceptualize Core Web Vitals as a general overarching factor because it helps reconcile how something can be a ranking factor that doesn’t make a difference in search results on its own.
Listen to the podcast from the 19 minute mark:
Featured image by Shutterstock/Asier Romero
