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Google Page Experience Update and its effect on Website Ranking development trends in 2022

Google is now rolling out the desktop version of the Google Page Experience update. This rollout started Tuesday, February 22, 2022 and will roll out through the end of March 2022. Google told that its won’t be affect more on you website ranking.

There is both a spike in SEO and webmaster chatter from the industry and many of the tools are showing an increase in volatility starting around February 24, 2022. The Page Experience change, which was initially handed out to mobile search results in November 2021, will be applied to desktop search by February 2022.

The update started rolling out on desktop on February 22, making it a nine-day rollout concluding on March 3. By comparison, the launch of the page experience update on mobile took two and a half months to complete. With Google announcing the conclusion of the desktop rollout, you can start assessing the impact on your search rankings.

Google Search Console has a report dedicated to evaluating Page Experience criteria on desktop versions of webpages. Use the Search Console report to gain an understanding of how the page experience update impacts your site.


If the report shows a majority of your pages in the red or yellow, it’s likely any ranking drops occurring on March 3 are a result of being negatively impacted by the page experience update.

The ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has several comments in the past day or so about a larger update. Some calling this a “huge” update, saying this is bigger for them than “any core update.” Others are reporting drops in 20% of their traffic, while some saying they see half of what they normally see from Google.

Here are some of those recent comments:
● Huge drop in traffic. Bigger than any core update I can remember.
● 20% down on my side after a 10% drop last week. Let’s see how deep it goes…
● Our European travel site’s Google traffic (and traffic in general) were down slightly today, with most of the decline coming from Eastern, Central, and Northern Europe. I’d say that’s pretty understandable, given the circumstances.
● Hmm seeing my traffic cut in half again yesterday and today, assumed everyone was busy watching the news!


How Will This Change Affect Your Website?

Google will now evaluate factors that were not previously considered for your website in desktop search results. If your website performs well on mobile, it’s probable that it will do well on desktop as well.

Because mobile-friendliness isn’t a criterion in the Page Experience desktop update, your site might gain a ranking increase in desktop search even if it isn’t mobile-friendly (as long as other criteria are met).

The desktop signal is based on the URLs that desktop visitors view if your site has a separate desktop and mobile URLs. A new report from Google Search Console evaluates Page Experience criteria on desktop versions of web pages.

You may use this report to get an idea of how the change will affect your site after it is fully implemented at the end of next month. The desktop report may be found just beneath the mobile report in Search Console’s Page tab.

So if you find drop in website traffic or keywords ranking, this is definitely because of Google Algorithm update.