SEM: 4.24.23 (Daily SEO Newsletter)
in which Google pulls the rug on your page experience and mobile usability report
Hello!
This is SEM: your daily SEO inspiration, where I curate/summarize one valuable item related to SEO and send it your way M-F.
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In today’s newsletter, we’ll look at Google’s recent announcement of some upcoming changes to their Page Experience report in Search Console:
In the coming months, the Page Experience report within Search Console will transform into a new page that links to our general guidance about page experience, along with a dashboard-view of the individual Core Web Vitals and HTTPS reports that will remain in Search Console.
Also starting December 1, 2023, we'll be retiring Search Console's "Mobile Usability" report, the Mobile-Friendly Test tool and Mobile-Friendly Test API.
My Take
Sometimes music says the things so much clearer and captures an emotion more precisely than a hundred sentences could. So what better way to meditate on the ephemeral nature of Google products—surely a metaphor for our own fleeting lives—than to share “In The End” by Linkin Park.
It sounds to me like Google is saying “hey, you… you get it. Make a good page experience for your users. We’re tired of trying to measure exactly what that is for you in Search Console.”
And I understand, maybe. Perhaps these metrics, this page experience report, this dashboard that measures mobile usability is just a shorthand… an inadequate way to measure a changing and fluid online experience, and Google wants to suggest, nay, ENCOURAGE us to be brave and step into this new reality with a sense of…
JK. They probably just figured out how they could save a bunch of money by shutting these reports down.
There are several FAQ-type questions on the page that address things like whether page experience still plays a part in a site’s rankings (it does, but is not a single signal). So while they are going to link you to the guidelines instead of letting your test your site against the benchmarks, this overall feels less helpful for webmasters compared to keeping these tools and letting people see realtime results.
What do you think—a helpful change…
Or nah?
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Until tomorrow…
Sean Markey
sem@hey.com
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