Illyes believes a hypothetical ranking factor like page speed should be a minor factor. “You don’t want to sacrifice relevancy for speed,” says Gary Illyes. In the podcast, the Google Search advocates then discussed the effects of ranking signals for a hypothetical search engine – their statements may, but need not, match the Google setup. Page experience becoming more of a lightweight signal In the case of HTTPs, the importance of the ranking signals was reduced four or five-fold until the desired effect was achieved. Illyes explained that, after the roll-out, the effects of changes to search results and the click and search behavior of users were analyzed. It shouldn’t fundamentally change the quality of the search results, but the objective is to give websites with HTTPS a little boost, informing users and, more importantly, website operators about secure and encrypted connections.
MARTIN SPLITT GOOGLE UPDATE
When Google rolled out the update that introduced HTTPS as a ranking signal, it was designed to be a tiebreaker right from the start.
According to Google, ranking signals that act as tiebreakers are supposed to bring about minor improvements or influence the web in a certain direction. Lightweight changes to certain features are seen as more of a tiebreaker, meaning they can impact which sites will rank higher if other signals are similarly good. HTTPS: a lightweight tiebreak factor for Google According to Illyes, an update roll-out can always have undesired effects, too, e.g., a negative effect on click-through rates, which are often lower for reputable sites than for “fake” sites that tend to rely on clickbait. When new heavyweight ranking signals are introduced in Google updates or their relevance is altered, it is usually done to solve a more serious problem, such as fake news or spam. Google Search advocates John Müller, Martin Splitt, and Gary Illyes discussed how Google’s algorithm treats the differently weighted signals in their “Search Off The Record” podcast from May 2021.Īccording to Gary Illyes, the aim of Google updates is either to solve a bigger problem or influence the development of the web in a certain direction by introducing new ranking signals or changing their relevance. According to Google, the weighting of their signals is often divided into two categories: heavyweight signals, which have a considerable influence on the rankings, and minor signals, which have a minimal impact only. Whenever Google releases one of its updates, the relevance of certain ranking factors, or ranking signals, to use the Google term, is affected or new KPIs are added. Google experts on the difference between the lightweights and the heavyweights They’ve confirmed that the new page experience factor, which is part of Google’s Core Web Vitals, should only have a minor impact on rankings. Google experts have now shed some light on how changes introduced through their updates affect search results. We are constantly being asked questions about the importance of ranking factors.