Core web vitals are a new addition to the many existing signals for page experience—judging a webpage on the factors of visual stability, interactivity, and loading performance.
Multiple experiments from Google have demonstrated decreasing daily searches per user on increased web latency, irregular visual stability, and other factors, thus, providing a benchmark to a three-point metric (LCP, CLS, and FID) to aid the development of resource-efficient web applications.
The metrics capturing important user-centric outcomes are –
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) – Measure of time from when the page starts loading to when the largest element (text block/image element) of the page is rendered.
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) – Measures the cumulative score of unexpected layout shifts from the start of loading of a page to the entire load lifecycle.
FID (First Input Delay) – Measures the time from the first interaction (click on a link, tap on a button, etc.) of a user to the time when the browser actually responds.
Why does it matter
As Marcus Tober, Founder and Chief Evangelist, Searchmetrics, has explained,
“The Google Core Web Vitals update is in many ways a response to websites not really living up to user expectations. It’s a clear message to website owners that not putting users first may have a negative effect on rankings.”
Google has explicitly highlighted that these three signals would be an important factor in ranking your website well. The weightage is yet to be determined, but including the core web vitals to its existing signals for page experience like mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines highlights how serious Google is about user experience, thus, laying its importance as a ranking signal.
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