Google has updated its Understanding page experience in Google Search results help document to provide clarification on how page experience and core web vitals are used in search rankings. According to the updated document, core web vitals are used in a limited way, while other page experience signals are not directly used as ranking signals.

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The updated document states that Core Web Vitals are used by Google's ranking systems. Site owners are recommended to achieve good Core Web Vitals for success in search and to ensure a great user experience. However, it is important to note that good results in Core Web Vitals reports or third-party tools do not guarantee top rankings in Google Search results. Core Web Vitals scores are meant to help improve overall site performance for users, and solely focusing on achieving a perfect score for SEO purposes may not be the best use of time.

Other aspects of page experience, besides Core Web Vitals, do not directly impact website rankings in search results. However, they can contribute to a more satisfying user experience, which aligns with what Google's ranking systems aim to reward. It is still worth working on improving page experience overall.

In addition to the updated documentation, Google's John Mueller posted on LinkedIn about Core Web Vitals, stating that focusing too much on tweaking scores for SEO purposes is not worth the effort. Mueller emphasized that a perfect score in Core Web Vitals is a technical challenge and can be a valuable learning experience, but it will not significantly impact a site's rankings in search results.

Google's messaging regarding Core Web Vitals and page experience has changed over time, leading to confusion among website owners. In February, Google stated that page experience and core web vitals were not direct ranking factors, but now they confirm that core web vitals are indeed a ranking factor. This confusion arose from changes made to content guidance and page experience documentation. Google clarified that page experience is a ranking signal but not a ranking system. The recent updates aim to provide further clarification on these signals and systems.

Google also updated its help document on Pagination, incremental page loading, and their impact on Google Search. The previous version stated that page experience is a Google Search ranking signal, but this line has been removed in the updated version. The new document advises site owners to display a subset of results to improve page performance but also ensures that the Google crawler can find all site content.