Google page experience update rolls out just as core update finishes; Wednesday’s daily brief

June 17, 2021 keywordana

Plus, Google Search Console Insights report is now open to all

Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily.

Good morning, Marketers, what an amazing day of content from SMX Advanced yesterday. I am really looking forward to today’s speaker lineup. If you haven’t registered yet, there’s still time to watch Day 2 live and get the Day 1 presentations on-demand.

Google has started to roll out the page experience update, they said slowly, today. This update is going to be a slow one, rolling out through the end of August. Thursday, Google will stop using AMP for top stories eligibility and will start using those core web vitals in the page experience factors.

In the news, Google has launched Search Console Insights, a reporting tool designed to help publishers better understand their content performance. However, it is worth looking at for any site (not just news), since now it is open for any verified site in Search Console. You can learn more about that below.

Finally, the Google June 2021 core update finished rolling out on June 12, it was a ten-day rollout. Google confirmed the rollout finished on June 12 but the company did not tell us until June 15. I hope you and your clients did well with this update. Just remember, there is another rollout happening next month, so it is not over yet.

Barry Schwartz,
SMX speaker

Google June 2021 core update done rolling out

The Google June 2021 core update that began rolling out on June 2 has finished rolling out on June 12, the company just announced on Twitter. Google said “the June 2021 Core Update rollout is complete as of June 12, 2021.”

We did see a lot of ranking fluctuations on June 11 and June 12, it is hard to know if it was 100% attributed to the core update rollout but it is possible.

Why we care. Now that the rollout is complete, you can safely check your rankings to see how you were impacted by this core update. The rollout happened between June 2 and June 12, a ten day period.

Keep in mind, Google is going to roll out another core update next month in July and that update may reverse the gains or losses you experienced from this June core update.
Learn more over here.

The page experience update is now rolling out

So while the June core update finished a couple of days ago, now the page experience update has started to roll out. Google said the rollout is happening very slowly and will take place through the end of August 2021.

Starting Thursday, June 17, Google will start using the page experience signals for eligibility into the top stories carousel and section. A reminder, do not expect massive or even medium size changes to your rankings from this update, it should not be a big one.

Why we care. Most of you have been waiting for this update to rollout for now over a year. It is now rolling out. Again, do not expect big ranking changes from this rollout and do not confuse it with ranking changes due to the core update we had in June and the core update we are expecting in July.

Learn more over here.

Google Search Console Insights are now open to all

After a year of testing the new Google Search Console Insights, Google has opened this reporting tool to all those with verified Search Console access. It is important to associate or link your Search Console profile with your Google Analytics profile to gain the most amount of information in these reports.

Search Console Insights is designed specifically for content creators and publishers and “can help them understand how audiences discover their site’s content and what resonates with their audiences,” according to Google. The Search Console Insights reporting is powered by data from both Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

Why we care. What more could you want? More data, more views, more ways to see and understand your content performance is awesome. Having certain Google Analytics data in Search Console is super convenient and also helps you see your data in new ways. So check it out and maybe you will gain some new insights into how your content is performing, giving you new content and marketing ideas for your business.
Learn more over here.

More Google ranking shifts over this past weekend

More Google Search ranking tremors. Over the weekend, I saw another large spike of tremors and ranking fluctuations in Google Search. It might be the tailend of the June 2021 core update or maybe it was some other ranking algorithm(s) that Google pushed out before the weekend – I don’t know.

Site command queries. We all know not to pay too much attention to site commands in Google Search but when you add a query to it, it works super well – well most of the time. One thing I noticed over the years is that when a site is hit by a Google update, like a core update, sometimes it makes the site query results look off and Gary Illyes from Google confirmed that updates can impact rankings within site queries as well. I feel a bit validated.

Page experience update drop. I feel like a broken record, but I keep seeing SEOs panicked about the page experience update and their core web vital scores. Stop it, stop worrying, Google keeps saying you won’t see a sudden drop in rankings from this page experience update.

People also ask slower. Did you know that to change, add, remove the people also ask search results can take much longer than dealing with normal search result snippets in Google Search?