Google's John Mueller was asked again about page speed and how important of a ranking factor it is, if at all. John replied, saying page speed is a vague term and that Google uses core web vitals and page experience metrics instead. But John added that a "great UX doesn't fix other problems."
John posted this on Twitter saying, ""Page speed" is very vague; we think about core web vitals & page experience & the helpful content system. There's definitely no "LoadingTime-50ms" => "ranking-1" mapping. Here is how we think about it."
He then added, "A good page experience is useful regardless of SEO though. There are case studies by various commercial sites showing how a minimal improvement maps to a measureable change in user behavior. A great UX doesn't fix other problems, but users have high expectations nowadays."
Meaning, having a great page experience without having content that is great and relevant won't do you too good for ranking well in Google Search.
Here are those tweets in context, so you can see them all:
What are you asking specifically?
— John Mueller (official) · Not #30D (@JohnMu) July 15, 2023
"Page speed" is very vague; we think about core web vitals & page experience & the helpful content system. There's definitely no "LoadingTime-50ms" => "ranking-1" mapping. https://t.co/ikNpwIYoYH is how we think about it.
— John Mueller (official) · Not #30D (@JohnMu) July 15, 2023
Thanks a lot John that was helpful 👍
— Rodrigo Rocco 👨💻📈📗🔎 from JobBoardSearch (@rrmdp) July 15, 2023
To be fair, I, as well as many SEOs, are still confused with the new messaging around page experience.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
