• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, April 19, 2021

Google on Monday provided details and a timeline around the forthcoming update based on page experience. The company last year said when it comes to ranking results in search, it would use page speed and other metrics that reflect how users experience a page or website.

With plans to factor page experience into the search ranking systems beginning in mid-June, Google will finish rolling out the change by the end of August.

Page experience remains one of many elements the systems will take into account, so marketers should not expect drastic changes solely based on page experience, according to Google. The company plans to monitor the rollout for any unexpected or unintended issues.

To provide marketers with more actionable insights, Google also will introduce the Page Experience report. It combines the existing Core Web Vitals report with other components of the page experience signals, such as HTTPS security, absence of intrusive interstitials, safe browsing status, and mobile friendliness.

The report includes metrics such as the percentage of URLs with good page experience and search impressions over time, enabling marketers to evaluate performance quickly.

Google also added the Search Performance report, allowing marketers to filter pages with good page experience, and general availability of signed exchanges (SXG) on Google Search for all web pages. Google Search previously only supported SXG built with the AMP framework.

SXG allows Google Search to leverage privacy prefetching technique in compatible browsers that can lead to improved page experience. This technique enables Google Search to load key resources of a page such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS before navigation, making it  possible for the browser to display pages faster.