Google Core Updates: How To Prepare Your Website

Google Core Updates & Changes

Google updates its algorithm more often than you might think.

A Google core update can be several times a year.

And this can have huge effects on your website’s performance, including your organic rankings.

Why does Google make changes?

SEO is constantly changing and there is always new information being sprung into the internet.

So Google needs to refresh its index, to make sure it is ranking the websites that should be ranking. It needs to be sure that when users are searching for a phrase, the best results are being shown.

Those results are generally mobile-friendly, secure websites with pages that load within 3 seconds, and that displays content that matches the intent of the user.

Get information on Google updates with Kaweb

Here, you will be able to find the most updated official information on important Google core updates.

Learn what to expect in the update and when it’s due to take place.

You’ll also see how to check your current performance in line with the new update, and how to make sure your business’ website won’t suffer, but will thrive!

Google Update 2021

When is it happening? Sources at Search Engine Journal say May 2021.

What is it? Google’s ‘Core Web Vitals’ are becoming a much more significant ranking factor.

This means Google will assess the following Core Web Vitals signals to decide how good your website performance is, and where it should rank you according to that:

• Loading – Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – how many seconds it takes the largest piece of content on a given page to load
• Interactivity – First Input Delay (FID) – how long it takes for your page to become interactive
• Visual stability – Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) – how much the content shifts about on your page, especially during loading

Top Tip! Best practice is for your website’s page to load within 3 seconds, but the faster, the better! If it’s any slower or less responsive than that, you could be risking a loss in traffic, and potentially sales, should your visitors exit.

How do you measure your current performance?

On the whole, the above signals are a way of telling Google how user friendly your website is. You need to use a page and site speed testing tool to check the above scores. Google Search Console and Google’s Page Speed Insights can show you this.

Go to Google Search Console and look at ‘Core Web Vitals’ under ‘mobile’.

This will tell you how many URLs you have that are scored poor, or needing improvement. Google provides you with the errors it finds, for example, ‘LCP issue, longer than 2 seconds’. You can then work with your developer to investigate what’s causing this and resolve the problem to speed it up.

Google Ecommerce Update Ahead of April 2021

We posted on social media that there will be an update from Google for ecommerce websites with regards to inconsistent pricing.

Here is what you need to know for the moment.

• Google has never officially noticed whether your website prices change when someone goes to the checkout page, until now
• It’s considered a form of ‘deceptive pricing’, which isn’t in line with the policy of the Merchant Center
• Google will be officially uploading advice to retail businesses on April 6 2021 – we’ll update this page when Google releases information
• If a landing page price is different to that of the final checkout page, the business might receive a warning asking them to review and amend, otherwise there could be a penalty in the form of a suspension with the Merchant Center

Hear it from the horse’s mouth. This is what Google says in its release statement:

“The price of your product should be consistent throughout the checkout process, not just between the product feed and your landing page. The price shouldn’t increase at checkout. It may, however, be lowered after the product is added to the cart if a promotion is added.

Any additional charges or fees, such as activation fees, must be included in the price.”

Remember that a Google core update can impact your rankings, so don’t be surprised if they go up or down because this is natural in SEO.

However, we’ll update this page as and when there is more information to give you so you can stay up to date and ensure your website doesn’t suffer.

Google Core Web Vitals Update as of 30 April 2021

Google has now updated its plans. There will be a slight delay in the update of core web vitals becoming a ranking factor. It will be mid-may to June.

Google says:

“We’ll begin using page experience as part of our ranking systems beginning in mid-June 2021. However, page experience won’t play its full role as part of those systems until the end of August. You can think of it as if you’re adding a flavouring to a food you’re preparing. Rather than add the flavour all at once into the mix, we’ll be slowly adding it all over this time period.”

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