The other thing to consider, some Google signals have outsized impact beyond their actual ranking factors
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2025 4:06 am
Previously, AMP was a requirement to appear in those Top Stories. AMP is going away. So you still have to meet the requirements for regular Google News inclusion, but AMP is not going to be a requirement anymore to appear in Top Stories. But you are going to have to meet a minimum threshold of Core Web Vitals. So that's an important point. So this could potentially affect a lot of ranking results. When is it going to happen? Well, Google has told us that it's going to happen sometime in 2021.
Because of COVID-19, they have pushed back the release of this within the algorithm, and they china gambling data want to give webmasters extra time to prepare. They have promised us at least six months' notice to get ready. As of this recording, today we have not received that six-month notice.
When that updates, we will update this post to let you know when that's going to be. So anytime Google announces a ranking factor change, the big question is: How big of a change is this going to be? How much do I have to worry about these metrics, and how big of results are we going to see shift in Google SERPs? Well, it's important to keep in mind that Google has hundreds of ranking signals.
So the impact of any one signal is usually not that great. That said, if your site is particularly poor at some of these metrics, it could make a difference. If you're in a highly competitive environment, competing against people for highly competitive terms, these can make a difference. So it probably is not going to be huge based on past experience with other ranking signals, but it is still something that we might want to address especially if you're doing pretty poorly.
Things like page speed, it's probably a pretty small signal, but as users experience it, it can have outsized influence. Google's own studies show that for pages that meet these thresholds of Core Web Vitals, visitors are 24% less likely to abandon the site. So even without Core Web Vitals being an official Google ranking factor, it can still be important because it provides a better user experience.
Because of COVID-19, they have pushed back the release of this within the algorithm, and they china gambling data want to give webmasters extra time to prepare. They have promised us at least six months' notice to get ready. As of this recording, today we have not received that six-month notice.
When that updates, we will update this post to let you know when that's going to be. So anytime Google announces a ranking factor change, the big question is: How big of a change is this going to be? How much do I have to worry about these metrics, and how big of results are we going to see shift in Google SERPs? Well, it's important to keep in mind that Google has hundreds of ranking signals.
So the impact of any one signal is usually not that great. That said, if your site is particularly poor at some of these metrics, it could make a difference. If you're in a highly competitive environment, competing against people for highly competitive terms, these can make a difference. So it probably is not going to be huge based on past experience with other ranking signals, but it is still something that we might want to address especially if you're doing pretty poorly.
Things like page speed, it's probably a pretty small signal, but as users experience it, it can have outsized influence. Google's own studies show that for pages that meet these thresholds of Core Web Vitals, visitors are 24% less likely to abandon the site. So even without Core Web Vitals being an official Google ranking factor, it can still be important because it provides a better user experience.