Over a year and a half ago, Google told us they would be dropping the page experience report from Google Search Console in the "coming months." Well, it took many "coming months" for it to happen and now the page experience report is no longer available within Google Search Console.
Google announced on LinkedIn, not X this time around, that the page experience report is being removed finally from Google Search Console.
Google wrote:
We're removing the Page Experience report in Search Console. That page summarized data from the Core Web Vitals and the HTTPS reports, which will continue to be available as they are.We decided to remove this page to reduce unnecessary clutter within Search Console and simplify navigating to this information. We still encourage you to focus on providing a good page experience to your readers and monitoring the status of your sites page experience in the CWV and HTTPS reports.
Farewell, Page Experience report 👋
I wish they would just say the reason was because SEOs obsessed about it as a ranking factor when in reality, it makes almost zero impact on ranking. But no, Google said it was to "reduce unnecessary clutter." And yes, Google said they "still encourage you to focus on providing a good page experience to your readers."
I no longer see the page experience report option under "experience" in Search Console - this is what it looked like:
For some history, the original page experience report launched in Search Console in April 2021 and was designed for just mobile pages. Google added a desktop version with the launch of the desktop version of the algorithm in January 2022. Now that it is 2023, Google is going to remove that page experience report completely and "will transform into a new page that links to our general guidance about page experience," Danny Sullivan wrote.
In December 2023, Google will also drop Google Search Console's mobile usability report (originally launched in 2016), the mobile-friendly test tool (launched in 2016) and mobile-friendly test API. Google said this is not because mobile friendly and usability is not important, Google said, "it remains critical for users, who are using mobile devices more than ever, and as such, it remains a part of our page experience guidance. But in the nearly ten years since we initially launched this report, many other robust resources for evaluating mobile usability have emerged, including Lighthouse from Chrome."
There has been a lot of wishy washy statements from Google on the importance of page experience and core web vitals. Google said We don’t confirm any of the things [page experience or core web vitals] as a direct ranking factor - now they confirm core web vitals as a ranking factor. This goes back to the confusion (which is still there despite Google not wanting to believe it) around how the changes to get helpful content guidance and page experience documentation from a year or so ago. Google shortly after that confusion told us page experience is a ranking signal but not a ranking system. Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, said back then, "It just meant these weren't ranking *systems* but instead signals used by other systems."
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
