Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

I just realized, thanks to you, SEOs and also developers probably as well come from so many


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

different backgrounds.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And it's unfortunate that we choose to use this, like the trajectory that we come from.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Like I'm coming from here, you're coming from here.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Instead of looking at the entire spectrum in between and learning from each other's


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

perspective, it seems to be more like I come from this angle and I see this.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

You come from this angle, you see this.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

You must be wrong.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Right.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Yeah.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

I don't think it should be that us versus them dynamic that we currently have.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And I think that there's so much beauty in the fact that SEOs come from so many different


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

backgrounds.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Like we said in our introduction, I rap.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

That's what I did before I did SEO full time.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And there's so many people that you meet with so many interesting perspectives on so many


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

things.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And I wish when we work with engineers, we were able to come to the table better and


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

be like, look, I want to know everything about what it is that you're doing and what can


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

I learn here?


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

How can we work together more effectively?


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And that's very much my approach.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

I don't try to come into it like this is the way we must do it because it's the way I think.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

I more try to come to it from the perspective of like, hey, I know a little bit about what


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

it is that you do.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

You know, probably more than you might expect, but I want to learn this from your perspective


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

and I want to, you know, help support what you're trying to do.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

One of the things that we do at the beginning of any of our audits, there's this like thing,


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

it's like the prime directive from some agile thing that we read, where it's something like,


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

you know, everyone, we're just assuming that everyone did their best with what they knew


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

and, you know, the whole thing.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

So that we're coming from the perspective of a level playing field where it's like, I'm


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

not just hating on your work.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

I'm just trying to say like, hey, from the perspective of where I sit, these are the


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

things that can be improved so that we can, you know, make things perform better.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And at the same time, I need to understand your limitations.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

I need to understand like what you need in a user story for this to work for you.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

I need to know what sort of like supporting data and documentation you need to see in


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

order for you to, you know, get this on your prioritization schedule.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And, you know, I think a lot of SEOs aren't really thinking that way because a lot of


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

how things are presented both in our space and from that us versus them dynamic is like,


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

all right, well, you're going to bring all this great stuff to the table and no one's


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

going to do anything with it because they don't trust you.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And, you know, it's all just humans working together.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

So what do we need to do so that we can all come to a space of trust and make this work


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

and make it so everyone gets bonuses at the end of the year?


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

That's a nice way of looking at it.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

From a developer's perspective, what I can say is that what I observed myself as well


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

is that as developers, we are used to know that we don't know something.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And then we have to get better at figuring it out.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

There are still a lot of developers who are like, I know everything, which is unfortunate,


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

but they're usually developers or curious creatures.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And we are like, oh, I don't know how that works or how that is supposed to be.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And then we research and then we prototype and then we have something that solves the


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

problem.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

We are problem solvers.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

So when someone comes in and often SEOs come in and I think it's also because there is


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

such a wide variety of people's backgrounds in SEO, they might feel inclined to say, oh,


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

it's like this, even though they are not sure about it or they don't know it.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

So they cling onto their PDF report and say, this report says this is a problem without


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

necessarily thinking about it.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And I would love to see more SEOs admitting, hmm, I actually don't know.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Let's find out together or let's test this together.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Let's do some research together.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Well, that is easier to do when you're in-house.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

It's harder to do when you're a consultant.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Because they don't expect you to know everything when you're in-house.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

They expect you to know enough and work through it.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Whereas when you're a consultant, they want you to have the answer, even if there isn't


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

a definitive answer.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

But as far as developers, I like to think of them on a spectrum.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And I think I mentioned this to you via email before.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

I think of it as the Anderson Alderson spectrum, where Anderson is Thomas Anderson, like Neo


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

from the Matrix, who hated his job, didn't want anything to do with anybody.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And then you've got Elliot Alderson, Mr. Robot, who was the guy that was working all hours


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

of the night, just kind of doing work without anyone telling him, being super proactive.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And so there are those developers, like you're saying, this side of the Anderson scale, it's


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

like, I know everything, you don't know anything.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And they present very much that way, even when they are typically more intellectually


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

curious amongst their peers.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And obviously, those people are very difficult to work with, and you've got to have documentation


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

for everything.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And again, that's the person that's going to find the Google documentation that says


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

that you're wrong, and that's that.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Yeah, exactly.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Whereas the Alderson side, I had a guy who's a developer working with a client at one point.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

We were presenting the site audit on site with them, walking through everything, and


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

he was committing code, fixing things as we were talking, and asking questions.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And probably that's not the best way to do development work.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Of course, you need to run it through your whole process.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

But it was really good to see how receptive he was for what we were doing.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And he was very collaborative.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

That's the ideal situation.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Someone who's going to ask questions, someone who's going to help you clarify things so


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

you can make the recommendation far more pointed and actually make it happen.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And obviously, those are the extremes.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

But obviously, something in the middle is where things work best, where it's like, hey,


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

SEO, you understand it.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

You don't know everything about this website because you didn't build it.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And hey, engineer, you understand you don't know everything about SEO because those requirements


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

are not in your day to day.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

So let's all get together and figure out how to make this work and trust each other.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And that's it.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Sounds easier said than done.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

But I think, yeah, to sum it up, SEOs should value the difference of perspective from different


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

people and be receptive to do their own research.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And also, developers need to be more trusting towards SEOs and take them on the journey


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

with them and work together to figure things out together.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And I think that would probably make things easier for everyone.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Yeah, I'll tell you this.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

No SEO is trying to ruin your website.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

They're not actively trying to mess things up for you.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Their remit is helping it improve its visibility, drive traffic, ultimately driving conversions.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

So the reality of the situation is it's an antagonistic relationship because the whole


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

job or a lot of the job is telling an engineer that they've done something wrong.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And again, we need to reframe that so it's a better working relationship.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Yeah, interesting.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

So let's hope that people out there watching this conversation are finding their way of


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

reframing it and actually getting onto a table and collaborate with each other rather than


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

trying to prove each other wrong.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Because I think if we try to just prove each other wrong, we're not getting anywhere.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And we have the same goal.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

We want better websites.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Absolutely.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Awesome.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Mike, thank you so much for being here with me and taking the time to talk this out.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And I think I am full of new ideas and I will definitely try to make our documentation better


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

together with our lovely team and our fantastic tech writer, Lizzie Harvey, and all the others.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And yeah, thanks a lot.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Thanks for having me, Martin.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

This has been great.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

And, you know, I again just want to really thank you guys for all the things you've been


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

doing.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

I've been doing SEO for 15 years and it's been a dramatic improvement on how you've


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

engaged with the community, the documentation you're doing, the tools, and so on.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

So I definitely appreciate the progress and look forward to where this continues to go.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Thank you.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Thanks a lot for the nice feedback and thanks for everyone watching this.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

I hope that you had a good time.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?

Stay safe, stand healthy, and bye bye.


Why is SEO documentation so confusing?


Monetized websites, search experiments, and more!

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Search Off


the Record podcast.


Our plan for this series is to talk a bit about what's


happening at Google Search, how things work behind the scenes,


and who knows, maybe have some fun along the way.


My name is John Mueller.


I'm a search advocate on the Search Relations team


here at Google in Switzerland.


I'm joined for this episode by Martin and Gary,


both also on the Search Relations team.


And our guest today is Aurora, who


you might know from the Sustainable Monetized Website


series.


Hi, everyone.


Hi.


Hola.


Marhaba.


So tell us a bit about yourself, Aurora.


My name is Aurora.


I come from Spain.


And I've been working at Google for almost six years.


I started in Dublin.


Then I moved to San Francisco.


And just recently, I moved to Switzerland.


Yay.


Welcome here in Switzerland.


And also, what brought you to the team


that you were working on?


And by the way, what team is that?


And also, how is your team?


I'm always wondering.


So we are closely related teams-wise, Search Relations


and Publisher Policies.


But what are you doing?


What is your team?


How are they?


Tell us more.


That's a hell of a question.


OK.


Let me dissect it.


So I work on the Trust and Safety Policy Transparency


team.


And it's a really nice team.


You know a lot of my colleagues.


And yes, we do a lot of activities


or, how can we say this, actions that


are very similar to what your team does.


But we do this on the publisher end.


So what does this mean?


We educate on policies.


We explain our publisher policies


to publishers on AdSense, AdMob, and Ad Manager.


And we do this through materials and resources at scale.


So we write articles on the help centers.


We produce videos.


We do webinars.


Well, we used to do conferences.


But now we do webinars.


And if you're a publisher and you


want to see where the latest policies have been updated


and which are those policies, please


visit the change logs on the help centers for AdSense,


AdMob, and Ad Manager.


Cool.


Have you bookmarked that, Martin?


Yeah, I will definitely.


So how can people get in touch if they have questions or want


to find out more about these policies?


Can they send you an email?


Or what would you prefer?


So it depends on what the, I keep saying it depends, John.


I think you've been an incredible influence for


everyone here.


So it depends on what the question is.


If you have, for example, ideas for topics or content requests,


like I think this could be amazing


and I'm not seeing this anywhere,


by all means reach out to me on Twitter.


I'm out there.


And if you have questions about your monetization


and your personal account, these are questions that we cannot


answer on a one-on-one basis.


And this is something that resonates probably with all


of you on the search space.


John says yes, Gary says no, but it's a yes.


So for those questions, my recommendation


is to first go to the help center,


understand our policies and restrictions.


And if you still have questions, and if you have had a policy


violation, check the policy center.


That's your first place to see what's going on on your account.


I recommend that you go through every penalty that


has been flagged and understand where it's


present on your whole website, not just on the example pages


that are provided.


And if you still have questions, by all means,


visit the AdSense, Ad Manager, and AdMob communities,


the forums.


These are places where the community helps each other.


They're fantastic.


The product experts have so much knowledge and experience


in the industry and so much passion for the products.


And they're there to help you to understand


where your issues are.


So yeah, my recommendation is go to the forums as well.


Another resource are the webinars.


So keep an eye on them and make sure to register,


because that's where myself and my colleagues,


we will participate and we'll give you the information


that you need.


And we will remind you of where you can go


and what places to look for certain types of information


and where we will give you all of the policy updates.


And about the webinars, let me tell you something


that happened with my first webinar last year.


My first webinar on this team, I had never


done a webinar before.


And definitely, I had never done a webinar about this topic.


And the postman buzzed not just once, but twice.


I didn't know what to do.


The first time I ignored it and the second time I thought,


okay, I have to kind of excuse myself to thousands of people


who I can't see and open the door.


So my best practice after this situation


is even if you're presenting at a webinar,


make sure that you're dressed for the occasion, fully dressed


for the occasion.


MARTIN SPLITTENBERG Yeah, that's, yes.


That's a, yeah.


I have the opposite approach now.


In the beginning, I built a little device


to put outside my room where I'm recording this stuff that


was blinking red.


And it's like, warnings.


Like, everyone be quiet.


And in case anyone rings the doorbell,


it's like, tell them to go away kind of thing.


And now, after a year of this, I'm like,


this is just part of life.


And it almost loosens things up a little bit


to have part of normal life happening


as well at the same time.


So if someone rings at the doorbell,


it's like, well, it happens everywhere.


Like, there are kids that are loud or some lawnmower


in the garden.


It's like, it happens.


LYNN AHRENSEN HALM


MARTIN SPLITT


for user-generated content.


That changes things a lot.


Are you really writing about cheap,


or are you being sneaky about what you're doing?


We would have to understand a lot of things


about your website before I give you a straight answer.


MARTIN SPLITT OK, fair enough.


But you mentioned user-generated content.


That reminds me.


I showed up on one of your videos


on user-generated content.


So I feel like I should have user-generated content.


I should have just moderated properly


and all that kind of stuff that you taught me there.


What other video content do you have


to help me understand how I need to build that website


to be able to monetize it?


LYNN AHRENSEN That's actually a very good point, Martin.


So as you know, we created this series called


Sustainable Monetized Websites.


And it talks to content creators and content managers who


also handle their monetization.


And as you know, many times this is the same person,


or it's the same group of people.


Many content creators out there, they


don't have the budget to hire a marketing agency or an SEO


to do these things for them.


So in this series, we talk a lot about, well, bear in mind


to make sure that the content that you use is your own,


for example.


Don't take content from anyone else, or content


that you don't have permission to use, basically.


Make sure that you have quality content.


And then we give them tools such as Search Console


and the Publisher Policy Center, even Site Kit,


to ensure that they're monitoring their site properly


and they're getting the most out of our tools


to understand their websites, both on the monetization


side and the organic side.


So the episode you participated in, Martin,


was great in the sense that user-generated content is


usually a challenge for a lot of publishers


who don't understand why their articles are demonetized.


And this is because many times their comment sections


are being monetized, but they're not being monitored.


And that's the difference there.


It's really important that if you


want to monetize a page on your website that contains


user-generated content, as you know, Martin,


what do we have to do?


We have to make sure that it's not violating the policies.


Yeah, exactly.


It's moderated, and it's good quality, and stuff like that.


Yeah, you get a cookie.


Gary, can I have a cookie?


You get a Gary cookie.


What?


Gary, you're great with making cookies.


Do you make me cookies again?


I mean, sure, maybe.


Wow.


You have to accept the cookie banner, Martin.


I guess so.


Oh, god.


Is this about cumulative layout shift again?


If I say no, then I'm the cookie banner.


Oh.


You're the cookie monster.


Oh, man.


Cookies.


But I mean, like, user-generated content,


like, I don't have any control over that.


By definition, it's like someone created it and put it


on my website, right?


People ask us about this when it comes to search as well.


And they're like, you can't penalize my site


for something someone else did.


Yeah, but this is like when your kids show up


with a really bad mark from school.


And they say, but it's the teacher


that has something against me.


This has nothing to do with me.


Well, ultimately, what do you reply


to your son or your daughter?


You say, well, this is on you, right?


No?


You don't say that to your kids, John?


I don't know.


That's, like, really tricky.


It's like, usually it's always a teacher's fault


when the grade is bad.


And it's my kid's fault when the grade is good, right?


Yeah.


That's how that would work.


Exactly.


Yeah, it's the idea that ultimately


it's going to be your website.


So take care of it holistically.


Moderate your stuff, John.


Come on.


I know that you've just switched to YouGo.


And I guess now the next step would


be to get some user-generated content back in.


Yeah, I turned all of that off on purpose.


I know, me too.


I found different ways to integrate


comments and things like that.


And I was like, I just don't want


to deal with all of these hassles.


So I put a link on the bottom of my post.


It's like, post on Twitter if you really


want to comment on anything.


That's actually a very good idea.


It's a way of creating community and getting


the conversation started, but not really putting it


where your content is.


Do you monetize your content, John?


I have affiliate links, actually.


I don't expect to actually earn any money from it.


But it's more like, oh, I should try this out and see


what happens kind of thing.


Nice.


Someone is monetizing my content, Aurora.


Can you believe that?


I actually can, Martin, because it's probably


very good quality content.


I am so heartbroken.


I was so, so heartbroken.


I wish I would have known about all the tools


that you just mentioned a lot earlier, because I was like,


ooh, I'm going to monetize my blog.


And it's like, nope, already monetized.


I'm like, excuse me, what?


So Martin, when did you actually create that content?


And how many years did you leave it without monetization?


Oh, god, it makes me feel so stupid now,


because I think I probably left a lot of money on the table.


I think I started like 2014, 2012.


And I just now realize that I should probably


try to monetize it.


Well, you're actually somebody who believes in sharing


knowledge on the web.


There's nothing wrong with that.


And I actually think it's great on you to have


the attitude that you have.


It is a pity, though, that somebody was faster than you


and saw the business opportunity in monetizing your content.


Now, would you mind telling me, have you


taken any steps to reclaim your content?


Not yet, but do you think I should


get my lawyer on the case?


You might need to do it.


So have you filed a DMCA or a copyright infringement claim?


I try to sound as non-dense as possible,


but how would I do that?


At Google, we're not the main decision makers.


So we will receive a copyright infringement notification,


and we will review it, and we will take action


if everything is in place.


However, then the person who gets


that notification on their content,


they can then file a counter notification.


And the person who filed against them in the first place


will then have 10 to 14 days to prove


that they're taking legal action against that content that's


online to keep it offline, to keep it delisted.


So it's important that if you are going ahead with this,


it's important that you have an attorney or a lawyer close by,


because you might need to prove eventually,


if there's a counter notification,


you might need to prove to them that you


are taking this seriously.


But at the end of the day, you need


to understand that if this is a serious matter,


you will have to deal with it in court.


This will have to be solved offline.


Like Martin, let's take this offline.


Let's take this offline.


OK, all right.


Off the record or on the record?


I don't know, actually.


I am not an attorney.


I'm pretty sure if it goes to court,


eventually it will be on some sort of record.


Discussing off the record, what will be on the record.


Interesting.


OK.


So yeah, good luck with that, Martin.


Yeah, it's like Martin, you will have


to be serious for a change.


Yeah, as if.


And by the way, there will be an episode


of Sustainable Monetized Websites coming on this topic.


So stay tuned, as someone we know would say.


Stay tuned.


Cool.


I'm kind of curious what kind of content it is.


Like did they just scrape it from your website


and put it on their own website?


Yeah, yeah.


It's my blog post, basically.


So I have a blog with lots of experiments that I've done


and lots of things that I learned about setting up


specific pieces of software or like software development tips


and tricks.


And again, lots of experimental stuff


that I've done in the past.


And it's relatively clearly unique.


It just was scraped and is online elsewhere,


which is wild.


What a bummer.


Yeah, the web is a crazy place sometimes.


Actually, I didn't tell you where


you can file this Copyright Enrichment Notification


request.


So you have to g.co slash legal.


That's g.co slash legal.


And you have to select the product where


you're finding this situation.


And that's where you can file it also for the counter


notification.


Thank you.


Make sure that the link works, that I didn't just scam you.


OK.


Let me actually double check that.


A link drop in the podcast.


Oh my gosh.


If you're anything like me, it always is wrong.


So speaking about experiments, what


can you tell us about experiments in search, Gary?


Is that something that we do?


A little.


Or a bit more than a little.


If you go to the How Search Works site, for example,


then somewhere there we are going


to mention a very big number of experiments


that we run each year.


And for many people I talk to, that's


actually a shocking number, like shockingly high number.


But it is true that for pretty much every launch that we have,


be that ranking launch or UI launch,


we will have to run an experiment.


And then we update that number or not for seven years,


depending on whether we have someone new working on that


site or not.


But every single launch that we have


will have to have some sort of experiment running,


or at least a rating.


And we typically use ratings for stuff


that we can't launch on live service


because it changes things too much, for example.


Or it would give away something that we don't necessarily


want to give away yet.


One example for that would have been Hreflang launches


that we had in the past.


For that, well, actually we had to update the index for it


to work.


And then because we couldn't turn it off anymore


on serving side, we had to run ratings,


where we can have serving cluster that is not


accessible for the public, for example,


and then we would compare against that.


But then with experiments, for example,


if we had to relaunch, for example, the HTTPS ranking


boost, then for that we could run a live experiment, something


that we call live experiment.


And live experiments are exactly what the name says,


basically running an experiment on live servers,


where we would launch something for, let's say,


1% of the users, and then we compare their experience


to those who haven't received that experiment.


And Gary, I have a question, if I may.


You may not.


So let's continue.


If I am one of those users that are


being selected for the experiment, do I know this?


Is this notified to me?


You do not.


And that's typically the point of experiments,


that you wouldn't know that you are part of an experiment.


So you don't actually change your behavior


because you know that you are in an experiment.


Like, for example, let's say that you have an utter hatred


towards secure sites, and then you


would try to avoid secure sites because you know


that you are in an experiment.


Like, we don't want that.


We want you to browse normally and see


how you react to the change.


Like, would you unknowingly avoid secure sites,


or you would just continue your normal behavior when


you are on a search result page?


So no, you never know.


Internally, we can look it up for our own user.


Like, for my internal corporate account,


I can look up which experiments I am in.


But otherwise, it's not possible to look it up.


Is there a place where I can sign in or register


to become a randomized experiment user tester?


User tester?


As in be one of those users that get randomly selected.


Can I register for that?


Well, I have good news for you.


You are already selected.


Yes.


Basically, any user may become part of an experiment


at any given time for any period of time.


One of my bad news is that at any given time,


my corporate account is part of hundreds of experiments


that are running on the search result page.


And if I turn off internally again,


like you can do this externally, if I turn off the experiments,


then sometimes the results look pretty much the same.


And then, like, why am I in hundreds of experiments


if the results will still look the same?


But then if you start looking at the smallest details,


like, for example, the shade of a gray


changed somewhere on the search result page,


I suddenly start noticing these minuscule changes that we make


and see how people react to it.


So it's actually super, super interesting.


But if you are not paying attention,


then you might not even notice that you


are in an experiment, in a specific experiment.


So the experiments are not just about ranking.


It's also UI changes?


Yeah, absolutely.


I think with UI, it's even more important


that we run experiments.


Like, with ranking changes, we can actually


send the change to raters and then ask them to rate it.


Like, before or after was better.


But with UI, you can influence a lot.


I recall a talk from, back then, SVP Marissa Mayer was saying


that we purposefully introduced a few hundred-millisecond delay


in delivering search results to a segment of users.


And that decreased our revenue considerably


from search result pages.


And that's how we started realizing that speed matters.


You wouldn't have been able to do that with raters.


You had to have an experiment running


for an extended period of time to assess


whether a change or that particular change


will cause anything.


And same goes with icons and whatnots as well


that we might add, or badges that we


add to the result pages.


I know that Barry Schwartz, one of the most prominent SEO


bloggers out there, is keeping a very close eye on our search


result pages and notices everything.


And people report things to him.


So every now and then, you can see


that someone pops up on Twitter and mentions that, hey, Barry,


I noticed this new badge.


Is this new?


And then there are tons of people who are like, wait,


what?


I'm not getting it.


And that's because that particular person


was in an experiment where we were


testing how people react to that new badge or whatever.


And of course, usually Barry says that it's not new.


It was launched in 2007 or something.


I find it very amusing.


And sometimes I tease him about it.


But yeah, experiments are important, especially for UI.


Things that we are looking for when running the experiment is,


as I said, reaction to the experiment,


like whether users' behavior change.


And that's a very loaded topic.


Like, what does behavior mean on a search result page?


One thing that I covered when I said a few things about the HTTPS


launches is whether I will unconsciously start


avoiding certain results.


Like, for example, what if we boost


every site whose domain name starts with a J


to the first position?


If we see that people will avoid the first result in most cases,


then we can say that that's not a good launch.


Like, go back to the drawing board,


redesign your experiment or your ranking change or whatever.


How much time they might spend on the search result page?


Like, for example, if we launch an experiment where


we are looking at whether those J domain websites get a boost,


will users spend more time on the search result page looking


for an appropriate result for their query?


Or whether the search session or the length of the search


session changes?


So I search for something.


Then I spend some time on the search result page.


I click something.


I go back.


I refine my search, click against something,


go back to search result page.


Does that change the length of that session?


And small things like that that can


paint us a picture about how people like a particular change.


Same goes for UI changes as well.


I remember when mobile friendliness first


launched, which was, I don't know, a couple of years


ago in internet time.


It was 1782 BC.


It feels like that.


We wanted to put some kind of a label or an icon


in the search results for mobile friendliness.


And I remember seeing some of the discussions


with the product manager at the time, where it was like,


they're just so frustrated.


They tried all of these different things.


And every one of them confused users.


They did things like set up an icon.


And they tried to have a mobile friendly icon.


And then they tried a mobile unfriendly icon.


And one of the things they noticed


was it takes a different amount of time for people


to realize what this icon even means.


So it's like you can't do an experiment just for one day


and then see what happens.


You almost need to leave it running for a while.


And then you almost need to track


how things change over time to figure out


what is an easy way to tell people what this means so


that they kind of react appropriately to it.


LYNN AHRENSEN I was actually going to be a question that I


have for you.


How long do these experiments run for?


GARY ILLYESISIOSAKE LASCARIS-MARTINEZ-MARTINEZ


With some experiments, you can stop within a week,


for example.


LYNN AHRENSEN Really?


With some experiments, you have to run for sometimes months


at a time because you just can't collect enough data


to make a proper decision.


You could make educated guesses, but that's not


how launches work at Google.


And also, that's an important thing


that you said, John, that product managers, PMs,


and engineers have ideas, or I have ideas.


MARTIN SPLITT SANDHUISEN Everyone has ideas, Gary.


And in my head, it sounds good.


It sounds reasonable.


And I want to launch that idea because, well, it


makes sense in my head.


And then something might throw off the search leads,


and they ask for an experiment.


And then when we run the experiment,


that confirms that my idea was actually idiotic,


and it actually drives away engagement from the search


result page.


So it's really important to test these things, these ideas


that we have before launching it for everyone.


In my head, it sounds amazing to have something


that highlights that a site is secure, for example.


But when we put that up in an experiment,


like a small icon or a secure or whatever label,


it actually drove away engagement


from the search result page for some reason.


And then, of course, we could go to a select few people


that we asked to participate in a UX study, for example,


and ask them why they hate us.


But at that point, when you have hundreds of thousands


or even millions of users who react negatively to a launch,


then does it matter why they hate us?


Just don't launch.


And go back to the drawing board,


iterate, and then maybe try again with something else.


LUCIA MRVOVA-RODRIGUEZ-MARTIN.


Gary, can you give us an example of an experiment


that went really well that we're seeing now on search results?


GARY ILLYES-SACCHINI.


Most launches that we have have experiments in some way.


If I remember correctly, then RankBrain, for example,


had experiments running.


And it went well enough that we started talking about it even


externally.


So yeah, pretty much everything that launched


was either part of an experiment or was tested with an experiment


or with raters.


There are lots of things.


Most of them we don't talk about, unfortunately.


This is search of the record, right?


Yeah.


I'm just afraid that on our producer


he's recording these things.


MARTIN SPLITT SANDBERG.


Aurora, I'm just saying we are in a recording


for an off-the-record episode.


So the irony isn't lost here.


JOHN MUELLER.


So how do we pick if we do an experiment or run something


by raters?


Is that kind of arbitrary, or is there a reason?


GARY ILLYES-SACCHINI.


Sometimes there is a reason.


Sometimes it's just a hunch.


I would say most of the ranking leads who ask for experiments


or who actually approve launches,


they have years and years, like 20 years even,


experience with launches.


And they just have that experience


that can help them decide whether something should be


sent for rating or for experiments.


Obviously, with UI changes you can't do that.


You pretty much have to send everything


to run an experiment for.


With ranking changes, it can be a setup problem


where you just can't set up something


to run as an experiment because you can't control it


from the search result page.


We have the ability to turn off certain ranking components,


for example, from the search result page internally


on the corporate network.


And if you cannot do that, then it


will be very hard to run a rating for that experiment


because then you can't show raters to sites,


like one where the ranking change is running


and one where it's not.


With experiments, you might be able to create these constantly


running ranking changes or ranking change that


is launched on a specific cluster in a specific data


center where you control a segment of users search


result page.


And you can enable for them or turn off something


for that segment of users.


So it depends on what you are changing specifically


because ranking is complex enough


that there are lots of moving components.


And whether you can turn it off easily or not,


whether you are willing to launch it semi-publicly,


as in some people might notice it,


yeah, there are lots of different things.


Typically, it's the ranking leads


who will ask for either rating or experiment.


Most launches will have ratings primarily,


and then people or ranking leads might ask for experiments


as well if they are not convinced.


JOHN MUELLER-GROVE-MARTIN


There's nothing very specific, but for the most part,


are they kind of the same?


GARY ILLYES-SELLS-SCHREIBER So for experiments,


you always get raw numbers.


You never get subjective comments


about the ranking change that you are about to launch.


With ratings, the human raters have a box


where they can say that L3, left side, third result sucks


because blah, because there's a sheep in the picture.


So that's different.


Then with ratings, you can also give instructions


what to pay attention to.


Like for example, with hreflang, one of the biggest issue


that we had was that raters didn't consider the ranking


change that was introduced by hreflang a good thing,


as in they were looking for, I don't know,


some generic term that was in the rating set,


as in the rating query set.


And then they got their local language.


And they considered that a bad thing because reasons.


They had lots of comments about why is that bad.


And then we had to explain to them that, wait,


we are actually trying to make this happen.


You would get results for your own country


in your own language.


And then they were like, oh, oh, that's cool.


And then suddenly, their ratings flipped


and they were positive because we


explained to them that that's literally


what we are trying to do.


I can imagine how that might throw some people off


So cool.


Really interesting.


So one thing I wanted to get back to Aurora,


now that you spoke up.


Oh, that's me.


Can you tell us a little bit about how you made it over


to Google in the beginning?


How did you even come here?


I think if you ask people in tech,


we all have very random stories of how we made it to tech,


especially people of a certain age.


I was studying journalism and media.


And tech was not really a thing when I was doing that.


It was not an option.


I thought that robots were the only beings


that worked at Google.


So when I found a really mysterious job posting


with no location and no real description,


and I got that job, I thought, oh, OK.


So I guess I'm working in tech now and I'm not a robot.


So I began at Google working in a team that is now


called YouTube Trust and Safety.


And what that team does is they review the contents


that users flag and report.


Oh my god, that sounds horrible.


So that was my first job at Google.


It's definitely a very interesting and challenging


job.


Don't look at me like that, Gary.


It's an important job because you


try your best to keep the platform free from abuse


and bad experiences for other users.


And I learned a lot during that year.


I have also worked in YouTube ads.


So I was placing mastheads and ads in front of videos


or after videos.


It was also a very interesting way


of understanding how the advertising world works


inside YouTube and inside Google,


and especially for the policies that are applied to these ads.


So for example, what ads are allowed to be placed in videos


and YouTube and what ads are not.


And then I kind of moved away from the ads space


and worked for a few years in the webmaster space.


So that's where I met you all.


And yeah, if you remember, I was moderating the English


and Spanish webmaster forums.


And it was amazing meeting all of the product experts.


These people are fantastic.


And of course, meeting you all.


You guys are also fantastic.


MARTIN SPLITTENBERG


I also went to a lot of conferences


to talk about how search works.


And I talked a lot about Search Console at the time.


Also in Spanish, I was brought to different places.


It was real fun.


I mean, you remember what it was to go to conferences, right?


A little bit.


Yeah, you do?


No, not anymore?


Gary shakes his head.


Fading memories.


Fading memories of amazing times which we met people in person.


And I also had a moment in which we talked a bit about safety


and security online.


So we insisted on, I don't know, things


that you are reading in the media a lot.


Ensuring that everybody at a company


understands two-factor authentication,


two-step verification, using one password per account.


All of these things that sound so obvious,


they are usually the most problematic things


for companies and organizations.


And we're hearing this, unfortunately, more and more.


So I had that phase as well on the team.


And a year ago, over a year ago now,


I started working on the publisher policy space.


I've been working from home, webinars, and all


of the video production.


You know very well we've turned our homes into studios.


You've been doing the same as me.


The two of us have also produced an entire virtual conference


from home.


We actually have Martin.


Remember last summer?


Mm-hmm, it was wild.


What a wild ride.


It was amazing.


And at the time, I was living in San Francisco.


So it was, OK, Martin, when do we meet?


How do we do this?


It worked out.


It all worked out.


It was amazing to see how connected


we are, even though we were in different parts of the world.


It's fantastic.


And actually, it went so well that this year, you're


doing version two.


How's that going?


Yeah, well, I mean, that was a lot of fun.


I think we had more applications than we ever


had before for such an event.


Yeah, I think it was fantastic.


It's so good.


We'll definitely do it again, and again, and again.


And again.


So many experiments.


Wow, it seems like you kind of made it


through so many different parts of Google.


So that's pretty cool.


No robots along the way, or were there some teams


that were more robots?


I think I can't answer that.


Come on.


We all know that Gary is a bit of a robot sometimes.


I think working in different areas in the company


gives you a great understanding of policies,


and how to work with different teams,


and how the different products work.


So now, when I look back at the different teams


I worked on, and the different things I've done,


now I kind of understand that all of those


were meant for what I'm doing now.


But at the time, I didn't quite understand.


I was just doing those things, not really knowing.


So I'm actually very grateful for all


of those different opportunities that I've been doing.


And right now, I'm having a lot of fun


with creating new video content for the different publishers.


So we're constantly looking for knowledge gaps.


So where is it that our users are not


understanding our policies?


And how can we bridge that gap through content?


So if you have any ideas for me, please let me know.


And actually, we're always taking in feedback from users.


So we don't run experiments like Gary was saying, necessarily.


But I do have interviews every so often


with different publishers to understand


where is it that they're not getting to our information,


or is it our language?


Is it the format?


And venues such as the UnConference


that Martin is organizing, those places


are really useful to talk to the community


and understand where is it that we have to create new stuff.


All right.


So cool.


Well, thank you for joining us here, Aurora.


Thanks for having me.


And thank you for all of those insights along the way.


Well, we've been having fun with these episodes.


I hope you had fun joining us as well, Aurora.


I definitely did.


Can I come back?


Well.


We will discuss.


We will check our policies first.


And restrictions.


Was that sheep Gary?


That is sheep Gary, yes.


It's also a sheep joke.


Anyway, I hope you, the listener,


have also been finding these fun and a bit insightful as well.


At any rate, let us know how you're liking these


and if there are any topics that we should cover as well


in future episodes.


And of course, don't forget to like and subscribe.


Thank you.


And until next time, bye, everyone.


Hasta luego.


Y das em.


Maya, as-salamu.


Ah.


How to make your ecommerce website mobile friendly (8 Tips)

How mobile-friendly is your ecommerce website?


And does it really matter?


Hi, I'm Alan Kent, a developer advocate at Google.


In this episode, I will talk about the importance of making sure your ecommerce website is mobile-friendly.


The most obvious reason to worry about mobile-friendliness is because more than half of Google search traffic comes from users on mobile devices.


That is traffic we are potentially going to send to your site.


Designing great experiences on mobile devices can be challenging due to the limited physical screen real estate compared to desktops and laptops.


But guess what? Simpler mobile website designs often also perform well on larger screens.


Simpler pages can help shoppers focus on their shopping journey with less distractions.


Mobile-friendliness is clearly important to users, and Google wants to direct users to sites that best meet their needs.


For this reason, Google has published numerous articles on how best to create mobile-friendly websites.


Check out Google Search Central and web.dev in particular for great in-depth articles.


So let's dig in, starting with some technical tips and then moving on to user experience tips.


Some sites prefer to have a separate domain name for mobile traffic so they can present a simplified user experience to mobile users.


If a user lands on the wrong domain name, they are redirected over to the other site.


The first tip in such cases is to keep the two sites in sync.


There's nothing inherently wrong with maintaining two websites, but it can result in content, functionality, or performance lagging on one of the two sites.


Content and functionality differences can be particularly jarring to shoppers when they visit from different devices.


If you choose to maintain two sites, you may find automated tools, such as Puppeteer, useful to check that the two sites behave similarly.


Puppeteer provides an API to control a headless instance of Chrome, which makes it great for automating tests as part of your build process.


With discipline, you can keep two sites in sync. Just make sure you always allocate sufficient budget to cover the work on both sites.


A better solution, however, may be to consolidate the two sites using responsive web design.


Responsive web design uses techniques such as CSS media queries to change page layout based on the width of the display area.


This can make it easier to deliver consistent experiences across all devices and potentially lower total development costs.


The second tip is to make sure you design your mobile site for indexing by Google.


Because most users issuing searches are on mobile devices, Google crawls sites looking for content to index using a mobile device user agent in the HTTP headers.


If you are new to search engine crawling and indexing of websites, check out our How Search Works page on Google Search Central.


Examples of problems that can occur when indexing mobile pages include mobile sites may omit information important for indexing from pages in order to reduce the page size.


While this may reduce the number of bytes to download, improving load performance marginally, it may result in your pages not appearing in search results as often.


Not a good side effect.


User experiences such as infinite scroll and load more buttons are often popular on mobile devices.


They can, however, cause crawling problems as the full page content is not loaded by default.


This can lead to Google not finding all of your content to index.


To detect problems with Google indexing your mobile site, check out Google Search Console.


Google Search Console provides rich insights into what Google has indexed on your site, including reports of problems found.


For more information, check out Daniel's wonderful series of videos on getting the most out of Google Search Console.


To help Google find all of your pages, consider using a sitemap file or providing Google Merchant Center a feed of all your product pages.


These provide alternative paths for Google to discover pages on your website, rather than relying on crawling alone.


Tip number three is to optimize your site for site speed.


Site speed is generally a greater concern for mobile devices as they are often lower powered, with lower network performance.


In previous episodes, I covered improving image and JavaScript performance on your site.


I've included a link in the description so you can check out those episodes for more information.


But there are other problems that can occur, such as when using web fonts.


If a web font takes a while to download, content may be displayed first with a default font, which is then replaced with the web font when available.


This can cause content layout shift as the page reflows due to the font change.


Potentially worse, rendering may be blocked completely until the font is loaded.


PageSpeed Insights is a useful tool for analyzing web pages.


It provides a number of performance-related reports.


PageSpeed Insights is particularly useful as it includes both lab data from artificial tests it performs on your site, and field data based on real user experiences on your site.


Most issues identified by the PageSpeed Insights report include advice on how to resolve the issues.


For web fonts, review your site to see if you can reduce the number of fonts you use.


Also try to reference the most important fonts early on a page, so they are loaded promptly.


Check out Katie's web.dev article on web fonts for more detailed advice.


The final advice regarding site speed is if you cannot make it fast, make it meaningful.


For example, if submitting an order takes some time to complete and there's nothing you can do about it, show the customer special offers or upcoming events while they wait.


Tip number four is less of a technical issue and more of a usability consideration.


It is to make sure pages from your site are readable on smaller mobile device screens.


This includes making sure content does not spill off the sides of the screen, making sure text is large enough to read comfortably,


making sure users can zoom in on content that want a closer look, and making sure button icons are large enough to be easily recognizable.


To test for these issues, you can obviously try your website on your own phone, as well as asking some friends with different brands of phone to try it too.


But during development, you can also use tools like Chrome Developer Tools to pick a mobile device to emulate with your desktop browser.


This can make it easier to test how your site will appear on a range of devices.


If you like automating tests, again, Puppeteer may be useful.


Fixing your site once you have identified any problems is typically a matter of reworking your website's HTML and CSS markup.


In addition to readability, make sure your site does not suffer from common mobile usability issues.


Examples include navigation structures, such as menus being too hard to use on a small device, buttons being too small to tap easily,


buttons being placed in a way not friendly to single-handed use, and relying too heavily on keyboard input to navigate your site.


Many usability issues are best found by conducting usability analysis of your site.


It can be eye-opening to watch a new user try to find a product and complete a purchase on your site.


What is obvious to you is not always obvious to a first-time visitor.


And don't forget to check the experience of refining on-site search results.


Entering text is generally harder on a mobile device, so make sure you don't require re-entry of text to refine a search.


In addition to manual inspections, tools can be used to find some issues.


Tools have the benefits that you can integrate them in your website's build and release process.


For example, check out the mobile-friendly test tool.


Simply enter the URL of a page on your site and it will analyze for common issues, such as the site uses an obsolete plugin, such as Flash,


the viewport property is not defined in a meta tag, and the font size is too small to read comfortably.


Google Search Console also has a mobile usability report for pages Google has indexed on your site.


Look for Mobile Usability in the sidebar menu.


Usability issues are again generally solved by reworking the HTML and CSS on your website, then testing to ensure the problem has been fixed.


Tip number six is to understand and simplify user experiences on your site.


Example common areas for improvement include forms for collecting payment and shipping details in your checkout flow.


And carousels is a popular way to pack more information into limited screen real estate.


Use of techniques such as Progressive Web Apps, or PWA for short, can also deliver users richer, app-like experiences on your website.


Detecting problems in your user flows generally requires manual usability analysis.


Tools can help spot well-known issues, but they cannot be relied on to find all usability issues.


When using forms, ensure your site correctly supports Autofill for payment and shipping details.


To learn more, check out great content on forms from Sam Dutton on web.dev.


If a site maintains a customer database with passwords, make sure form fields are marked correctly so browsers can often remember passwords for users.


Passwords, compared to standard Autocomplete and Autofill fields, must be treated with special care to ensure their security.


Better yet, consider using a third-party identity provider, such as Google, so shoppers are not required to remember yet another password.


Each site that manages its own database of passwords increases the risk of password theft, which can in turn make other sites vulnerable as many users reuse passwords across sites.


If you use carousels on your site, check out Katie's great advice on web.dev.


Practices such as auto-advancing carousels can look flashy, but often result in poorer user experience.


Progressive web apps and potentially related single-page apps or SPAs is a large field and beyond the scope of this video.


Check out web.dev for great articles on PWAs.


Tip number seven is personalization matters on mobile devices.


Users on mobile devices generally have a greater expectation of personalization.


This is influenced by multiple factors including mobile devices are typically not shared and so are inherently personal.


And smaller screens means it's more important to make what is displayed relevant to the user.


An effective way to determine if your site could benefit from personalization is to perform a site audit.


For example, shopper interviews are a great way to gain deeper insights into the expectations of your users.


Personalization comes in many forms.


It can be as simple as displaying products on the homepage that the user viewed on their last visit.


Or showing hand-curated offers based on the user's profile.


Personalization can also be advanced using AI-driven recommendation engines based on user actions on the site.


There are many great personalization and recommendation products on the market today, including from Google.


Personalization often benefits from remembering users.


Use of cookies is a common way to remember a user's tastes from a preview visit without knowing their full identity.


Alternatively, a site may offer a more personalized visit if the user creates an account and logs on,


accepting any terms and conditions to collect and hold details about the shopper.


The last tip is to review if your site can leverage more advanced input methods provided by mobile devices,


such as touch screens, cameras, geo-positioning location services, and voice input.


They can offer new and engaging ways for customers to interact with your website.


Examples of advanced interactions include using pinch and swipe gestures to zoom and browse through product images on your product page.


Using location services to show the user products in the nearest physical store first.


Supporting voice input to reduce the need to type on a mobile keyboard.


Providing the user an augmented reality experience so they can better visualize what a piece of furniture looks like in their own home before purchase.


And performing image searches for products based on sample material patterns captured with a camera using surfaces such as Google's Vision API.


Many, but not all native app features are now supported by mobile web browsers.


Check out Google's project Fugu for a list of such advanced capabilities to see what is possible.


You can also use sites like caniuse.com to see how widely a specific feature is supported across browsers before using the feature on your own site.


Note that if a feature is not in all browsers, JavaScript can typically detect if the feature is available or not and react appropriately.


That means it is not necessary for all browsers to support a feature for you to take advantage of it on your own site.


Thanks for watching this episode on making your website mobile friendly.


To be notified of new content as it becomes available, please subscribe.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Welcome, everyone, to the next episode of the Search Off


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

the Record podcast.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Our plan is to talk a bit about what's


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

happening at Google Search, how things work behind the scenes,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and who knows, maybe have some fun along the way.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

My name is John Mueller.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I'm a search advocate on the Search Relations team


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

here at Google in Switzerland.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I'm joined today by Martin, also on the Search Relations team,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

as well as Annie and Vivek, who both work on different aspects


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

of the Core Web Vitals.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Annie and Vivek, could you introduce yourselves briefly?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Hi, I'm Annie.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I work on the Chrome Web Platform team,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and I'm the tech lead of the team that develops


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

new Core Web Vitals metrics.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And hi, I'm Vivek.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

It's good to be with you, John.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I'm the product manager for the team that develops


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

the Core Web Vitals metrics.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So awesome.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Good to have you all here.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Yeah, I mean, I'm really, really excited to actually have


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

you on this podcast.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Because I think for, yeah, pretty much ever


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

since the inception of the web, people


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

have been struggling with performance and speed


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and how to measure it, what to look for, how to improve it,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

how to build the fastest, best web.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

There's so many case studies out in the world


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

there telling us how important it is.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

But why is this so hard?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I mean, you've been probably like been in the trenches


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

with this for a long time, and you have probably thought


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

long and hard about this.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Why is this entire topic of website speed so hard?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And why does it matter so much?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Yeah, that's a really great question.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I mean, I think at Google, we've known for a really long time


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that speed is super important.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

It matters a lot in our own services.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And the more we work with partners on the web,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

we realize just how much speed matters to their businesses


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

as well.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Like you mentioned, for a really long time,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

the web community has been trying


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

to tackle this question of performance.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And it's just been really difficult to wrap our arms


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

around it because it's so multifaceted.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Is it how fast your server is or how much JavaScript


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

you're loading or how large your images are on your page?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

There's just so many different parts


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that contribute to that qualitative feeling


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that a user gets that, oh, this page is fast


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or this page is stable.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And so for a long time, we've had these long-running debates


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

about which parts of the user experience really matters


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and which parts of the underlying browser


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

technology or web technology can make a big difference.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And so I think what we did with Core Web Vitals is first,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

we took a very open approach to it.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

We looked at as many different web pages


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and different applications on the web as we could.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And we tried to understand what are the common elements that


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

contribute to that great feeling and that great experience


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that users get.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And that's where we came up with the three Core Web Vitals,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

the largest contentful paint, first input delay,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and cumulative layout shift.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And what we did with these metrics


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

was really take a user-focused perspective.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

What does the user see?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

What do they experience, and what do they encounter?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And then from that, try to derive


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

what we actually want the browser and the web


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

technologies to do.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And so for a long time, we didn't realize


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that we could even do this, that we could quantify the user


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

experience and make it measurable in a repeatable way.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

But we were really happy with a couple of great breakthrough


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

ideas that we developed in the open with the ecosystem


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

to achieve exactly that.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

MARTIN SPLITT


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

A user obviously navigates to a page


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

to look at something, read something,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

interact with something.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So how quickly can we get the user that bit of content?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

First input delay is how long it takes for the page


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

to respond to a user's input.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So this is for a page that has an interactive element


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

of some kind.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Maybe you're clicking on a button.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Maybe you're submitting a form.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And sometimes JavaScript and other things


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

can get in the way of making the page respond to that user input.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

It's really important that the page feels responsive.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And then cumulative layout shift is all about page stability.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Once a user is looking at a page,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

maybe their eyes started scanning the text


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or looking at an image, it's really disruptive for users


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

to have content on the page move around.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So we really want to make sure that when pages load


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and when elements are painted on the screen,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

they kind of stay where the user expects them to stay.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And that really helps the user engage with the page quickly.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

MARTIN SPLITT Alright, OK, cool.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

That was clear and short.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Congratulations.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I think I couldn't have summarized this shorter.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I'll steal all of these when I'm asked the next time.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So I've been a web developer for quite a long time.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And I remember at first, we were basically just like everyone


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

was totally psyched about time to first byte.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And that was the biggest, most important thing


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that you would ever look into.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And then came speed index.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Do you remember speed index?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Oh, yeah.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Yeah, I was so excited when they developed speed index


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

because all of the loading metrics up to that point


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

were very technical.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Time to first byte isn't something the user sees.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Time to first byte is a technical measure


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

of how long it took the user to receive some bytes.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

But then when is the web page visible?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

We still don't know.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And it's the same thing with onload event was the most


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

popular page load event.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And the problem with that is, again,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

it's a technical point in time.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

It sounds great, right?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

All of the HTML on the page has been parsed


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and the sub resources are loaded.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

But because web pages are made out of code


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and you can do anything you want, a lot of web pages


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

don't even start really loading until that onload event


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

happens.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So that event isn't, again, a user experience.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And so speed index was this major breakthrough


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that I was so excited about.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

It's the average time at which pixels were painted on the page.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

That's about what the user sees.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And that was just a really big breakthrough.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

MARTIN SPLITT


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Because, I mean, hypothetically, as far as I was concerned,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

a developer back when speed index came out, I was like,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

oh, this is the end all, no all metric.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

We don't need any new metrics.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And boy, was I wrong.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Why did that happen?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

OK, so there's two really big things


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that we're trying to make happen with Core Web Vitals.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

The first is a focus on the actual user experience.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

If we're looking at how long it takes to load a page,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

we want to look at what did the user see?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

When did the user see something?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And speed index obviously accomplishes that.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

The second thing is a bit harder.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

What we really want to look at, not just what does the user see


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

theoretically, but what does the real user see when your users


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

are actually loading your web pages?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

When do they see something happen?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

When do they actually see that the page is loaded?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And the problem with speed index is it goes pixel by pixel.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So there's very many security and privacy reasons.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

There's also performance reasons that we


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

can't implement this as a performance API in Chrome


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or other browsers.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So we needed to find a metric that we could use in a real


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

user monitoring context.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And that's where largest contentful paint is


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

a really big breakthrough.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Right, right, right, right, right.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

But I think you mentioned something very important


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that I get asked so many times out there.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Why is there such a big difference between what


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I measure in my Chrome DevTools with Lighthouse


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

versus what web page test measures versus what I see


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

in Search Console in the Chrome Web Vitals report


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or in the Page Experience report?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So you already said real user metrics,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and speed index wasn't that.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So there are different ways of measuring


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

these things and different places in which to measure.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So there's lab data and real user metrics.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Could you explain for us very shortly


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

what the advantages and disadvantages of each


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

of these two are?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Yep.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So lab data is basically any time either you


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

have a computer sitting in front of you,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or you literally, like when you go to web page test,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

you're loading in a lab.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

But it's a computer.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

You tell the computer, load this web page


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and give me a bunch of numbers.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And the great thing about lab is it


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

can tell you a lot of worst case scenarios.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

What if the network was like 3G or like slow 2G?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

What if it was the worst device you can't even


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

buy on the market anymore?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

What if all these things went wrong?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

You can still see how your page would load.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And it can give you a ton of details.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

How long did every single request take?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

How many bytes were in all of the images?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

All of the blocking times, what was the longest


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

individual JavaScript?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

You can get just dozens and dozens and dozens of details


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

about your particular page.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So lab can really help you dig into what's happening.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

But there's that question of what is happening.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

As you said, you might get a different result


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

from Lighthouse and web page test because they've


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

got a different device, right?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Like what you see on your computer


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and what you see in web page test and what you see in Lighthouse,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

those are all individual settings.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Basically, every time a web page is loaded,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

you're going to get a new result, like a different page


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

load time, a different LCPFID and CLS.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And what we really want people to focus on


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

is what their real users are seeing.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

You've got a bunch of users to your website


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and they make up a distribution.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Some people see it load really fast.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Some people see it load really slow.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Generally, there's a long tail where


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

most people are pretty fast.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And then it gets slower and slower over time.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

With the Core Web Vitals, we're measuring


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

what the 75th percentile of users are seeing.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So if 3 quarters of the people that use your website


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

get a fast load time, we say that's pretty good.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

OK, that sounds really, really cool.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I think, for me as a developer, lab testing is also very nice


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

because I can do that repeatedly while I'm developing the page


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and then just see how my changes impact these things, which


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I can't really do if I had to update the real world


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

production version and then just wait a couple of days


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

until I get the real world data back.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

OK, so that's cool.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

That makes sense to me so far.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Is there anything else that you would want people to understand?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

For instance, one question that I have


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

is it looks very much like this Core Web Vitals kind of,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or that's the perception from some people, fell


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

from the heavens and is now happening behind the scenes.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

But I don't think that's true, right?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I think it's being discussed very much in the open.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Yeah, we develop these as open standards.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

We talk about them in the Web Performance Working Group.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And the original Core Web Vitals, some of them


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

come from ideas that are many, many, many years old.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I remember being at Velocity 10 years ago


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and people were like, well, can Chrome show


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

when content was painted?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And basically, it took years and years


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

for Chrome to be able to be fast enough


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that it could show when an individual element was painted.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And then we made LCP based on that.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

But these ideas are over a decade old at some point.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So if I have kind of a high-end website,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

a lot of high-end users with high-end phones


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or high-end devices in general with fast connections,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

do I still need to worry about all of this?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Or is it basically like at some point,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

you will have a fast internet connection


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and you don't have to worry about all of these details


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

anymore?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Or how do you see that happening?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Yeah, so what's really interesting


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

is different types of pages, either based on their audience


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or based on their content, are going to have just even


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

if they don't look at the metrics,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

they're going to have different values.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So what you want to do is look and see


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

what is your largest contentful paint


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and your cumulative layout shift on your first input delay.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And if that's correct, all your users have fast devices,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

then maybe your content will show up fast.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I'm pretty surprised that I have a fast device


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and sometimes content does not show up fast.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So you should definitely check your numbers.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

But for some sites, yeah, it's easier to be fast.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And for some sites, they're serving audiences


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that have slower connections or slower devices.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And I think that they really need


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

to make sure that they're serving those audiences.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

People want to see the content low fast no matter


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

what kind of device they have.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Yeah, I think that's a really important point.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I think the other aspect is that your audience and your users,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

they have finite attention and time.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And they're not necessarily going to go and sample


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

every single web business in your industry evenly.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

They're going to gravitate towards the ones that


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

give them a great experience.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And certainly that has to do with the content


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or the products you're selling or the aspects of the business


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that are unique to you.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

But if they're interacting with you primarily through the web,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

then there's always going to be an upside to building a faster


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

site.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And that's something that we want


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

to encourage all web properties and web businesses


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

to really take seriously.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And I think the corporate vitals are a great way


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

of shining a light on that particular aspect of the user


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

experience.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

MARTIN SPLITTENBERG And what would I as a site owner


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

do if I think I, let's say, I think


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I found a bug in one of the metrics,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

where my site's clearly performing well


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and I tested with real world users,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

but my numbers come back very differently.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Where can I turn?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Where can I give feedback on how much


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I think these metrics actually reflect the reality?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So it depends on how deep you want to go with the feedback.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

We have an email list where we welcome any and all feedback.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

WebVitalsFeedback at GoogleGroups.com.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

You just explain as much as you can about the problem,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and then you send it.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And our commitment is that we're going to review all that,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and we'll keep it in mind as we're


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

modifying the current metrics and making new metrics.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

If you're like, no, I am exactly sure what is happening,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and this is incorrect, you can make what's


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

called a reduced test case.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

That's just a web page that has nothing on it


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

but the problem you're seeing.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So let's say that you think that the largest content


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

on your page is this image, and you


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

see that it's loading in 1.2 seconds,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and then the LCP is being reported by the Performance API


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Observer as 2.8 seconds.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So that's a lot of technical work to figure that out.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

But if you're willing to do that work


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and take everything off of the page except for that one image


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and write a little JavaScript that has a performance observer


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that shows the problem, then you can file a bug at crbug.com.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

There's a template for Core Web Vitals.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

File a bug, put the reduced test case in there,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and then we'll take a look and try to really understand


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

about what's going on.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So cool.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I think when we talk with people externally,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

one of the topic that always comes up


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

is kind of figuring out how to prioritize this kind of work,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

where the SEOs will come to us and say,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

so how important is Core Web Vitals anyway?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And usually we just wave our hands


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

because I think that's what we do on the team.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

But from your point of view, how would you


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

decide how to prioritize working on performance on Core Web


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Vitals versus working on a feature


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or other parts of a website?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

That's a really great question and a really important decision


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that I think a lot of web businesses need to make.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And this is definitely true in the last year


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that we've seen a lot of disruption, a lot of changes


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

to how businesses operate and becoming increasingly


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

reliant on the web in a way they never have before.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I think that our first and foremost position


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

is that this is a decision every business has


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

to make for themselves.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And our goal is to sort of inform that decision


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

as best we can.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

There definitely is a point for every online business


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

where your site is unbelievably fast.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Your user experience is rock solid.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Your site is responsive and stable.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And there may be other aspects of your business


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

you should focus on.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Maybe you should be focusing on pricing,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or maybe you should be focusing on new product development,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or maybe you should be building new features.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And we want to make sure that web businesses have


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

the ability to know when they've hit that point


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

but also know when they haven't.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

We've kind of observed that kind of sawtooth pattern


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

of performance kind of getting worse by attrition


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

over a long period of time and then sites


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

panicking and investing heavily in fixing their performance


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

issues and recovering.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And we want to kind of make sure that we can make that more


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

of an ongoing process so that this trade-off is real


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and present with every release of your site


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or with every release of your web experience.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And so I think that the Core Web Vitals approach there


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

is here are the metrics, and here are some thresholds


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that we found yield really great user


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

experiences across the board.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And there may come a time where there


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

are other priorities in your business,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

like responding to current events


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or responding to business emergencies


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or responding to putting things on sale for the holidays,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

that sort of thing.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And we definitely don't want to take away from that


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or even suggest that those aren't important.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

It's primarily about being able to say with every release,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I've launched this new feature, or I'm prototyping something


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

new.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Perhaps I'm rolling out an A-B test for a new feature.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

And among the various metrics, including conversion


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and revenue that I might be concerned about,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

performance hopefully is one of them as well.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So at least you'll know when you're making that trade-off


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and can make it consciously in a way that suits your business.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

That's really cool.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So from a practical point of view,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

how would you do that to make sure that all of your releases


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

are fast on a website?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Like if you're updating things over time,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

the marketing department adds a couple of new blog posts


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or changes the template slightly,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

what kind of practical tips would you


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

have for sites to follow along for that?


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

I think a lot of it can go back to lab testing


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

and thinking about can you run something on every commit.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So we talk about we have these great user experience metrics.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

That's what you should measure as your goal.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

But then lab's super valuable for giving you tons of detail.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

So maybe you know on your site that if you


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

have too much JavaScript or images that are uncompressed


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

or specific problems that keep happening,


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

you can put a commit hook so that if somebody tries


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

to add an uncompressed image, either it automatically


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

compresses a form or it just blocks a commit.


Let's talk Core Web Vitals

Same with if they add a big JavaScript library or things


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like that.


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So I think automated testing that's


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checking for audits for the worst type of problems


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like Lighthouse does, Lighthouse can


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be set up to be added to a continuous integration.


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I think that that's a really helpful solution.


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Also, being able to measure and monitor real user metrics


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in the wild.


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We have a lot of tools at Google that do that.


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But if your site gets big enough that you


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can implement your own real user monitoring


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and get day-to-day updates or even,


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I think the gold standard is to, as you launch a new version,


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you can separate out the real user monitoring


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from the new version and the old version.


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Or if you have an idea for a change,


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separate out as you got the change going out,


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the real user monitor for that change versus not.


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And that helps you really understand for real users what


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was the impact of the change.


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So cool.


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OK.


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So one thing I heard between the lines


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there is you're saying JavaScript is bad, right?


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Oh, here we go.


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No, totally.


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I am saying that the whole reason that we do user


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experience focused metrics is because we


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want to measure what is the actual user experience.


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We would say JavaScript can be challenging.


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For some sites, more JavaScript is a slower page load,


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full stop.


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For other sites, they're working really hard


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to load their JavaScript in a way


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where that is not true at all.


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They're using modern concepts.


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React has a whole thing about how


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it schedules JavaScript so this type of thing won't happen.


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There's a request site, a callback, API, different things


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that you can use.


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So I don't want to make a judgment on how much


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JavaScript you can use.


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But if you know for your site, based on, OK,


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I fixed this Lighthouse audit, and then my real user


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monitoring numbers get better, maybe I


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add a commit hook for that Lighthouse audit


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so that I don't break it again.


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OK.


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That makes a lot of sense.


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JavaScript can indeed be challenging.


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And actually, there's so many questions.


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So a bunch of people were like, yeah,


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but if I have a website that does server-side rendering


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where everything is being generated on the server,


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but then the actual HTML, it takes a little longer


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until the HTML is served to the user.


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And then it might also take quite long


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to actually generate things because pretty much all


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the HTML is there, and then the whole DOM


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has to be built in one go.


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Isn't that worse for the user experience than something


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where I ship the initial HTML quicker and then build the DOM


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more progressively and hydrate the content in?


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Are the Core Web Vitals taking that into account,


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for instance, is a question that comes up very often.


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So they take it into account in a couple of ways.


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First, largest contentful paint measures when


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the user saw the content.


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So that's the first question, like wouldn't it


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be better to render it on the server?


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Or then people have a question like, well,