In a new video, Google offers advice on how to check if your site meets all the non-Core Web Vitals page experience factors.
The video is a new installment of Google’s Getting Started With Page Experience series on YouTube.
Google explains that it groups the page experience ranking factors into two categories: Core Web Vitals and everything else.
This video focuses on everything else. Specifically it teaches SEOs how to check for:
- Mobile friendliness
- HTTPS usage
- Lack of intrusive interstitials
Along with Core Web Vitals, Google believes these are essential to providing users with a superior experience.
Here’s how to confirm and track how your pages are doing for each of these factors.
HTTPS
This is a straightforward check. Your site either uses HTTPS or it doesn’t. If it does then you pass the check.
In addition, it’s worthwhile to confirm that the rel=”canonical” is set to the HTTPS version of your domain.
Lastly, ensure all non-HTTPS traffic is redirected to the HTTPS versions of URLs.
Mobile Friendliness
Mobile friendliness refers to a specific list of issues that cause bad user experiences on mobile devices.
If your website is built with a modern, responsive design then it likely meets all the criteria for being mobile friendly.
In short, Google checks to make sure text isn’t too small to read, links aren’t too small to tap, and there aren’t any major signs that a site isn’t optimized for mobile devices.
Google recommends some adjustments that can help ensure a site is more compatible with mobile devices:
- Make sure content is scaled to the right size when people open your site.
- Set a minimum height and width for tappable elements.
These optimizations, which will likely require the assistance of a developer, can prevent user frustration and create a smoother navigation experience throughout your whole site.
There are other parts of mobile friendliness that could require more work, such as removing outdated plugins like Flash.
You can check to see of specific URLs meet Google’s criteria with the mobile friendliness checker, and you can check your entire site with Search Console.
No Intrusive Interstitials
This factor can also be referred to as a lack of annoying popups.
There’s no automated tool for checking this, but if your site uses automated popups you’re likely aware of it already.
In general, Google recommends avoiding covering a the whole page with something irrelevant to it.
Users should not be required to dismiss an interstitial before they can interact with the page. Ads on a page should not be disruptive to what a user is trying to accomplish.
It’s important to note that these requirements don’t apply to interstitials that are used for:
- Legal reasons (such as age verification)
- Cookies
- User logins
- Subscription paywalls
Those kinds of legitimate use cases are recognized as fine by Googlebot.
Checking AMP Pages
Google has a separate tool for checking AMP pages, though it’s likely they’re all passing the page experience factors already. You can be absolutely sure by utilizing the AMP page experience checker.
See Google’s full video below:
