Core Web Vitals measures page experience signals to ensure an engaging user experience for search users.
But can Core Web Vitals affect your organic search ranking?
Read on to find out if there is any connection between Core Web Vitals and improved Google rankings.
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The claim: Basic web vitals are a ranking factor
What are Core Web Vitals?
In accordance with web.dev:
Core Web Vitals are the subset of Web Vitals that apply to all web pages, must be measured by all site owners, and will appear in all Google tools.
Each of the Core Web Vitals represents a different facet of the user experience, can be measured in the field, and reflects the real-world experience of a critical user-centric outcome.
The three Core Web Vital metrics are as follows.
In March 2024Interaction to Next Paint (INP) will replace FID as the Core Web Vitals metric.
INP is a metric that evaluates the overall responsiveness of a page to user interactions by looking at the latency of all click, tap, and keyboard interactions that occur over the lifetime of a user’s visit to a page The final INP value is the longest interaction observed, ignoring outliers.
Key differences between FID and INP include the following:
FID measures the time from when a user first interacts with a page (clicks, taps, etc.) until the browser can respond to event handlers for that interaction, focusing only on the first input during the page load.
It aims to quantify a user’s first impression of a site’s interactivity and responsiveness.
INP, on the other hand, quantifies the time from all user interactions (clicks, taps, and key presses) to when the next frame is painted with visual feedback, taking into account all interactions throughout the cycle lifetime of a page, not just the first entry on load.
It aims to gauge the overall response of a page to the input.
An INP of 200 milliseconds or less indicates good responsiveness. Anything above that needs improvement.
The evidence of the main web vitalities as a ranking factor
In 2020Google Search Central previously announced ranking signals for upcoming page experience metrics (Core Web Vitals).
The corresponding blog entry stated the following:
Earlier this month, the Chrome team announced Core Web Vitals, a set of metrics related to speed, responsiveness, and visual stability, to help site owners measure the experience of user on the web.
Today, we’re building on that work and giving an early look at an upcoming search ranking change that incorporates these page experience metrics.
We will be introducing a new signal that combines Core Web Vitals with our existing page experience signals to provide a holistic picture of the quality of a user’s experience on a web page.
In 2021, Google hosted a half-hour “Ask Me Anything” session at Web Vitals. during the Osomeone asked if page experience is a binary ranking factor.
Philip Walton, a Google engineer who works on web performance, responded that Web Vitals were mostly not a binary ranking factor.
During the AMA, John Mueller, Google Search Advocate, confirmed that while CWV affects rankings, relevance also plays a role. If website A is faster than website B, but B is more relevant to the search user’s query, website B would still outperform A.
Mueller also noted that websites that move from “needs improvement” to “good” can see improvements in rankings. But websites that are already good and improve their speed by a millisecond or two may not see any ranking changes.
In 2021, Google has updated the original ad on the CWV blog. He confirmed that the launch of the page experience would be completed in August 2021.
The following year, a September 2022Mueller mentioned the page experience ranking factor in a comment on Reddit about accurate speed testing tools.
“If you go to web.dev, you’ll see that Google has a bunch of metrics, rather than just a single numerical score.
Some of these are grouped together as “core web vitals” and have ways to determine them in the field (using “real user metrics” [RUM] – what they actually saw) as well as “lab tests” (so you can test things on your side). Google uses real user field metrics/data for basic web vital data for search in the page experience ranking factor.
My recommendation is to use the vital web field core data (also called Chrome User Experience Report data / CRUX, there are several ways to access it) as a way to get a reference base for important pages on your site (pages will vary! ).
Then use the core web vitals lab tests to try to reproduce this, and then work with your developers to fix the issues. Lab tests allow you to test things quickly and see if there is an effect. Field data takes about a month to update.”
fast forward April 2023when Google “simplified” its guidance on page experience signals in search rankings.
While Google still recommends maintaining a strong CWV for a good user experience and still uses these metrics as ranking signals, improving one or more metrics does not guarantee a better ranking.
Page experience is still a ranking factor, but Google’s core ranking systems evaluate it holistically instead of a single “page experience signal.”
Mueller also updated the July 2023 Google Search Central hearings on YouTube about INP coming to CWV in 2024.
[Recommended Read] → Ranking factors: systems, signals and page experience
Top web vitals are a confirmed ranking factor
Google has confirmed that Core Web Vitals affect rankings in search results.
However, they are not a ranking “system” on their own, but rather contribute to evaluating the experience of the page.
They can have an effect within the useful content ranking system and go towards page experience signals.
Google’s web.dev documentation provides tips on how to improve your LCP, FID, CLS, and upcoming INP to improve your users’ experience and rankings.
Featured image: Paulo Bobita/SearchEngineJournal
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