Core Web Vitals Will Become a Google Ranking Factor in 2021

Earlier this month, the Chrome team announced Core Web Vitals, a set of metrics related to speed, responsiveness and visual stability, to help site owners measure user experience on the web.

Now Google has just announced an upcoming Search ranking change that incorporates these page experience metrics. They will introduce a new signal that combines Core Web Vitals with our existing signals for page experience (including mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines) to provide a holistic picture of the quality of a user’s experience on a web page. This will only go into effect next year and they plan to give us a heads-up of at least six months before the update gets rolled out.

The page experience metrics will also impact the Top Stories feature in Search on mobile, another big change it that they are removing AMP as a requirement from Top Stories eligibility. 

All that said Google also specified they will still prioritize pages with the best information overall, even if some aspects of page experience are subpar.

Along with Search Console, Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights will start surfacing Core Web Vitals metrics.