Google Lighthouse 8.3.0 Update

What is Google Lighthouse?

Google Lighthouse is an online portal that allows you to acquire in-depth information pertaining to your website from Google’s point of view. It is free for anyone to avail of the services. Marketers primarily use Lighthouse to figure out the performance of their website and identify their faults. This tool offers three chief acumens: web performance in terms of traffic, accessibility issues, and vital SEO opportunities.

The significant benefits Lighthouse offers include:

• Providing actionable performance suggestions.
• Presenting pointers on enhancing your website.
• Distinctly stating your website’s areas of concern.

About The Google Lighthouse 8.3.0 Update:

This updated version of Lighthouse is live on PageSpeed Insights and is scheduled to be released in Chrome Dev Tools in Chrome 94 on September 21st 2021. This version, i.e. Lighthouse 8.3.0, is designed with fixed recurring bugs and with the introduction of Project Fraggle Rock. A significant point of popularity surrounding this update is due to talks related to its propensity to increase page load speed. However, as per Google, decreased load speed is associated with bounce rate.

The Lighthouse Fraggle Rock Project:

• It endeavours to move past examining an individual web page and move to analyse user flow as well.
• It seeks to explore and examine flows beginning from the point when a user takes action akin to clicking on something and subsequently observing what happens next.
• The current version of Lighthouse assesses factors like the amount of time the web page takes to grow interactive. Whereas the version that runs on flow direction will evaluate the resultant effect post the page loading.
• The Google Lighthouse 8.3.0 Update project label is titled Fraggle Rock after a 1980’s childrens’ show that showed a lighthouse called the Fraggle Rock Lighthouse.
• It serves to provide a developer with a Lighthouse report that goes beyond an initial page load. This is an essential tool for developers who wish to gain insight into performance and the most beneficial practices to be used by complex user flows like sign-up, add-to-cart, time-to-tweet, etc.

Google Lighthouse 8.3.0 Bug Fixing Measures

• Some bug fixes that are part of the Lighthouse 8.3.0 Update are developments made as per the recommendations put forth by the various developer communities according to the frustration that they dealt with upon using it. 
• For example, one such fix was directed towards the ‘resource size calculation of cached images’. 
• They said that turning off cache corrected the problem; however, an approximate 10 seconds was added onto the lighthouse runs.
• The SEO category was recorded to draw focus on Core Web Vitals, i.e. CWV. This new work eliminates the direct reference to enhancing search results ranking and takes the connection with the words ‘search engine optimisation advice’ – this is increasingly neutral concerning promises of reaching the peak of a search engine results page.

To sum up about the Google Lighthouse 8.3.0 Update, it’s safe to say that it has reworded the SEO section to enable an exceedingly precise definition of SEO as an optimisation measure for search engines and further limit its association with enhanced ranking.