John Mueller confirms Google uses Core Web Vitals for search and ranking factors but says they pale in comparison to content quality.
Core Web Vitals and page load performance
Google Search Advocate John Mueller has been busy talking about website ranking factors.
The latest discussion was whether improving a website’s Core Web Vitals scores will improve its rankings.
SEO professional Andrew Mcleod posted his problem on LinkedIn, saying that in his 24 years in the SEO space, he’d never seen page load performance impact a site`s ranking until Google introduced Core Web Vitals earlier this year.
Here’s what he said and his example:
- “I’ve seen a deterioration in PageSpeed performance leading to dramatic and near-instant (within 72 hours) rankings changes.”
- “…this site had perfect scores in GSC Web Vitals and >90 score in PageSpeed Insights.”
- “Then, Ads were introduced to the site. What happened next was catastrophic. Rankings fell off a cliff. The Search traffic disappeared. PageSpeed metrics confirmed a dip in performance.”
- “Surely Ads don’t cause a rankings drop?”
Andrew also said the game has changed: Google favors big publishers, trust factors are a new reality, and new content creators have a slim chance of success.
He finished by saying he had yet to see experts like Mueller get involved in this discussion.
This got the desired reaction, as Mueller replied!
Mueller dismisses Core Web Vitals as cause
While Mueller confirmed Core Web Vitals are a ranking factor, he also said they have little effect on search results and wouldn’t account for the vast ranking drop seen in the Speed metrics chart above.
Mueller said on LinkedIn:
- “We’ve been pretty clear that Core Web Vitals are not giant factors in ranking, and I doubt you’d see a big drop just because of that.”
Mueller confirms user experience matters most
Mueller then returned to the new basics, irritating what he’s been saying since the September 2023 Google Helpful Content update. I.E., improve your website to provide a better visitor experience because a bad one could cause an increased bounce rate.
Mueller explained it as:
- “Having a website that provides a good experience for users is worthwhile because if users are so annoyed that they don’t want to come back, you’re just wasting the first-time visitors to your site, regardless of where they come from.”
Small Sites have a unique advantage
Mueller made an interesting point by saying smaller websites have an advantage over more significant sites when implementing SEO changes.
Mueller used an experience to explain why:
- “Having tried to get a meta tag or a robots.txt line changed on a big company website, I think smaller sites have a gigantic advantage when it comes to being able to take advantage of changes – they can be so much more nimble.”
Mueller admitted SEO changes on a more extensive website could be time-consuming, while a smaller site could update something like its robots.txt in 30 minutes.
- “None of this is easy; you still need to figure out what to change to adapt to a dynamic ecosystem online, but I bet if you want to change your site’s robots.txt (for example), it’s a matter of 30 minutes at most.”
The takeaway
Mueller’s clarification that improving your site’s Core Web Vitals won’t make a vast difference also highlights that they are still integral to Google’s search rankings because when you create quality content and a website your visitors enjoy, they’ll return.
