Organic Search • 3 min read

Now That’s Why I Call SEO: SEO News Highlights June 2020

Chloe Henderson 11 June, 2020

Welcome to the latest edition of our SEO News Highlights, published on a bi-weekly basis to help keep you up to date with all the major comings and goings in the SEM industry. Keep an eye out for future updates right here in the QC Blog!

Google Rolls Out Another Vital Update

Google loves to keep us on our toes and this week was no different, with an announcement of upcoming changes to the ranking algorithm that will incorporate Core Web Vitals into existing user experience signals. This is expected to launch next year and will be known as the page experience signal.

What are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals are a subset of Web Vitals that focus on user experience signals. These evolve over time, but currently include:

Loading – measured by Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
Interactivity – measured by First Input Delay (FID)
Visual Stability – measured by Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

In the new update, these will be measured alongside existing page experience metrics that include mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines (pop-up ads).

Why is this Important?

This update is Google’s latest move to ensure that sites are built with user experience as a priority. While good page experience won’t necessarily override excellent and well-optimised content, user experience metrics will help to boost visibility – especially where competition is high.

Google Local: “It’s Not You, It’s Me”

There’s been a lot of noise in the SEO world since the end of April concerning fluctuations to Google Local rankings attributed to the recent core algorithm update.

However, at the end of last month Google’s Danny Sullivan confirmed that this was in fact the result of a bug that has now been addressed. Local rankings should therefore be stabilising.