Good morning, Marketers, today Google began rolling out the page experience update for desktop pages but does it matter for SEO purposes?

The short answer is no. You most likely will not see any negative or positive results related to your page experience score that Google shows you in Google Search Console. We didn’t see ranking changes with the mobile version of the page experience update rollout and we likely won’t with the desktop version.

So, why is there such a big emphasis on this from so many SEO companies and consultants when there is little SEO benefit? I don’t think Google is fully to blame, because Google’s own statements said this will be a small update, at best. The answer is twofold:

  1. Page experience scores and metrics are something SEOs can easily measure and deliver on, despite no real ranking benefit.
  2. Page experience factors, outside of SEO, benefit the website with being faster, easier to use and may lead to higher conversion rates and more sales.

So sure, this SEO change may not matter for SEO but it may matter for other reasons.

Barry Schwartz,
Does my title matter?

SEO

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