Google Core Updates 2021: What You Should Know

Despite a lot of hype, the Google June 2021 Core Update was off to a slow start earlier this month. But that doesn’t mean it won’t pick up — and that it won’t impact your search engine rankings and visibility.

While our digital marketing team is still watching and testing, here’s what you should know about the latest Google algorithm update.

What is the Latest Google Core Update?

This is the first Google Core Update since December 2020, and yet there will also be another Core Update in July in a sort of two-part approach. Stay tuned for more on that.

The latest core update — which started rolling out on June 2 and will likely last for a couple of weeks — will make broad improvements to the Google search engine results pages (or SERPs) as opposed to targeting specific categories of sites.

Typically, Google keeps the details of its core updates hush-hush, unless there is “actionable information that site owners, content producers or others might consider applying,” as they mentioned in a recent core update blog post. 

How Will I Know if My Site’s Been Affected?

At first, you may lose visibility — but don’t panic if you do. If your site rankings take a hit in June, you may see them level out again with the July core update. 

However, Google says most sites shouldn’t notice the impact of either the June or July update. Time will tell if that remains true!

What About the Google Page Experience Update?

Yet another update that has fueled a lot of discussions lately — the Page Experience Update is expected for mid-June and will be slowly rolled out over many months. 

This new ranking algorithm is meant to better judge web pages based on how users interact with them. If Google predicts that users will have a poor experience on your site, your rankings may take a hit. 

How do they predict this? A new set of metrics called Core Web Vitals will score your site on the following:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures a web page’s loading performance. Optimal LCP is within 2.5 seconds of when a page first begins loading.
• First Input Delay (FID) measures the interactivity of your page. Optimal FID is less than 100 milliseconds.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures your site’s visual stability. Optimal CLS is less than 0.1. 

It’s yet another push to have user experience be a major factor in a site’s SEO. While content still has a large impact on your site’s ranking, Google is increasingly becoming smarter so that it intuits what a user might experience on your site — and rank your site accordingly. 

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Have additional questions on the Google algorithm updates or your site’s SEO performance? Contact our St. Louis digital marketing agency today.