The Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics developed by Google to measure website quality and user experience. These metrics include Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint, and Cumulative Layout Shift. Google uses these metrics as part of their Core Web Vitals assessment, which is considered as a ranking factor for websites.
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures how quickly the main content of a webpage appears after a visitor opens the page. Interaction to Next Paint (INP) measures the responsiveness of a website to user input, and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) checks the stability of the page layout after it appears. Websites that fail to meet the criteria for these Core Web Vitals will receive a warning in Page Speed Insights and Google Search Console.
To improve the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), website owners can run a free website speed test to identify what is causing the main content of the webpage to lag. This test provides insights and high-level performance metrics that can be used to optimize page load speed. It also offers automated recommendations and ranks them by expected impact. In addition, specific metrics for the LCP, such as the responsible page element and related requests, can be analyzed in detail.
Improving Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is important for mobile websites, as only 64% of them currently provide a Good INP experience. INP debugging can be challenging, as it depends on user interactions that can’t be easily tested. Manual testing and the use of Chrome DevTools performance profile can help website owners identify and improve slow interactions. The INP Debugger tool is also available to automatically simulate interactions with different page elements.
Overall, having a good Core Web Vitals assessment across all three metrics can positively impact a website’s ranking on Google. By monitoring page speed and Core Web Vitals and taking steps to optimize Largest Contentful Paint and Interaction to Next Paint, website owners can ensure that their websites load quickly and provide a good user experience.
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