Google Page Experience May Change the Way Retailers Think

The page aims to quantify how a page performs, and to ‘provide a holistic picture of the quality of a user’s experience on a web page’.

How does it work?

Google is no stranger to experience-related signals, including those used for mobile convenience, safe-browsing and HTTPS security. As such, there are guidelines it follows to incorporate these signals into the websites it supports.

Google Page Experience takes these existing signals and combines them with ‘Core Web Vitals’, which Google defines as ‘a set of real-world, user-centred metrics that quantify key aspects of the user experience’.

These Core Web Vitals measures page loading time, visual stability and interactivity.

Core Web Vitals launched earlier in May and is currently being used in Lighthouse, an open-source tool for running website audits and Google PageSpeed Insights.

Page Experience will use its signal with Google Search, but it will also include it in the Top Stories feature on mobile.

So, what does this mean for retailers?

While content is still king for retailers, what will be vital for them moving forwards page loading speed, interactivity and stability.

“While all of the components of page experience are important, we will prioritize pages with the best information overall, even if some aspects of page experience are subpar,” said Sowmya Subramanian, the Director of Engineering Page Experience at Google.

“A good page experience doesn’t override having great, relevant content. However, in cases where there are multiple pages that have similar content, page experience becomes much more important for visibility in Search.”

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