Improving accessibility doesn’t directly affect a website’s search rankings, says Google search advocate John Mueller.
This was mentioned in a Google Search Central SEO office hours hangout recorded on March 25th.
One of the questions posed to Mueller asks whether there is a direct ranking benefit to improving accessibility.
This question specifically asks about links that are visually separated from their textual content using features such as font weight, underlining, and color contrast.
Would this kind of accessibility enhancement provide SEO benefits?
The answer is number — at least not directly.
However, Mueller recognizes the importance of accessibility and doesn’t rule it out as a ranking factor in the future.
Google’s Mueller on Website Accessibility
When asked if there is a direct ranking benefit to improved accessibility, Mueller said:
“No, it’s not. So I think accessibility is important for a website because if you alienate users with a website they can’t use, they won’t be able to recommend it to others.” .
However, it is not meant to be taken up and used as a direct ranking factor for search. Maybe that will change over time. “
If it matters, why not use it as a ranking factor?
Mueller continues by saying that Google has no way to quantify accessibility.
For example, what would Google measure to objectively rate the accessibility of one website over another?
Google needs to define the factors that make a site accessible and how those factors compare across different websites before implementing them as ranking factors.
The Core Web Vitals Mueller addresses in his answer are a set of factors that allow Google to quantify a good page experience.
Something like Core Web Vitals could be created to measure website accessibility. However, there are no plans to do so at this time.
“You can imagine the work we’ve been doing with Core Web Vitals and Page Experience ranking factors, and at some point we might be able to quantify accessibility a bit more, and at that point we might be able to use it. Yes, in terms of rankings, but at least at this point, we don’t have concrete plans in that direction.”
This is in line with an article we published last year about 15 things that don’t rank Google.
Given the importance of accessibility, it’s easy to assume that Google’s algorithms have default ways of evaluating search rankings.
Maybe one day that will happen, but until then, it’s important to make it easy for as many people as possible to navigate your website.
See the video below for Mueller’s full response.
Featured image: Screenshot from YouTube.com/GoogleSearchCentral, March 2022.
