Page Experience: Errors, How To Check Them

Google has recently shared some tips on how you can check whether your site meets the criteria for the latest page experience update or not.

Core Web Vitals are some of the important factors that affect your rankings. But what about non-Core Web Vitals?

Google has recently added a new video to their series “Getting Started with Page Experience” on YouTube, where they offered some advice on checking the non-Core Web Vitals page experience factors.

According to Google, page experience ranking factors are divided into two categories – Core Web Vitals and other factors.

In the latest video, Google has focused on the second category and has taught us how we can check for

• Mobile-friendliness
• HTTPS usage
• Presence of intrusive pop-ups

Google says that we should put equal focus on both Core Web Vitals and these elements so that we can give the best experience to our users.

Here are some checks that you can do to determine how your pages are performing in each of these factors.

Is Your Website Mobile-Friendly?

A lot of people use smartphones to browse the internet. And the numbers are growing daily. So, you need to make sure that your website is mobile-friendly. Else, your users may feel frustrated when navigating through your website.

If you have built your website using a modern design that is responsive, then there is a high chance it meets all the criteria for being mobile-friendly.

So, here are some things that Google checks.

1. Size of the text
2. Links are large enough to tap easily.
3. Any signs that your website is not optimized for mobile devices.

So, firstly, you should make sure that the texts and images present on your website are large enough so that people can see them easily when they visit your website using mobile devices.

Also, make sure that the tappable elements of your website are big enough to be tapped easily.

You may require the help of a developer who would take the required steps to ensure that a user gets a smooth experience and has no reason to get frustrated.

You can optimize your site for mobile even more by removing unnecessary and outdated plugins like Flash.

Lastly, there is a mobile-friendliness checker by Google. Here, you can enter the link to your website. Google will run some checks and confirm whether your website is optimized for mobile devices.

You can even check your entire site using the Search Console.

Does Your Website Use HTTPS?

This is the easiest and most straightforward check. Check the URL of your site. It either has HTTPS, or it doesn’t. If you have HTTPS in your URL, then you are good to go.

Also, check whether the rel= “canonical” is set to the HTTPS version of your domain. It will be worth your time.

If you have any non-HTTPS traffic, you should ensure that you redirect to the HTTPS versions of your URLs.

Are Intrusive Interstitials Present in Your Site?

Do the words above you seem complicated to you? In simple words, it’s the lack of annoying pop-ups.

If any website is just full of automated pop-ups that are totally irrelevant, any person can get frustrated. Google highly recommends that you avoid doing this.

There is no tool for Google to check it automatically. But if your site contains popups, then you are surely aware of it.

No one should be required to close a popup before they can even start interacting with your page. Ads support you financially, but that does not mean you will place ads that will disrupt what a user is trying to accomplish.

Here are some pop-ups that are not considered as annoying, disruptive, or irrelevant:

1. Legal stuff like age verification, privacy policies, etc.
2. Cookies
3. User logins
4. Subscription paywalls

If you have these kinds of popups, then it is fine, according to Googlebot.

AMP Pages

If you have an AMP page, Google has a tool that you can use to check them as well. Although, there is a high chance that they have already passed the tests. If you want to be double sure, then you can use the AMP page experience checker.