In 2023, the WordPress community witnessed a major milestone in website performance, with Core Web Vitals (CWV) showing significant improvements for both mobile and desktop users.
This article dives into the details of these improvements, exploring their implications and the evolving landscape of web performance within the WordPress ecosystem.
What are Core Web Vitals?
Core Web Vitals are a set of specific metrics designed to measure the quality of the user experience on web pages. This set of metrics is also a confirmed ranking factor for Google Search.
As part of Google’s broader Web Vitals initiative, the metrics focus on load performance, interactivity, and visual stability. They apply to all web pages and are important for site owners to measure and optimize.
There are three key metrics within CWV:
The largest content paint (LCP) evaluates the load performance. A good user experience is indicated when the LCP occurs within 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load. First Input Delay (FID) measures the interactivity of a page. For a good user experience, the FID should be 100 milliseconds or less. Cumulative Layout Change (CLS) evaluates the visual stability of a page. A good user experience is maintained if the page has a CLS of 0.1 or less.
These metrics are designed to be measurable in real-world scenarios, reflecting critical aspects of the user experience.
In addition to these, there are other vital metrics:
Time to First Byte (TTFB) and First Contentful Paint (FCP) are key aspects of the loading experience and help diagnose problems with LCP. Total Block Time (TBT) is important to diagnose potential interactivity issues affecting the FID.
Although important, they are not part of the set of Core Web Vitals because they cannot be measured in the field or do not directly reflect a user-centric outcome.
WordPress Core Web Vitals improves in 2023
WordPress CWV improved substantially in 2023.
Screenshot from WordPress, December 2023
Mobile CWV pass rate has increased by 8.13% from 28.31% to 36.44%.
Similarly, desktop CWV pass rate improved by 8.25% from 32.55% to 40.80%.
This improvement is significant, considering the base values from which these percentages increased.
In relative terms, the new approval rates are approximately 29% higher than before on mobile and 25% higher on desktop.
This progress exceeds the improvements made in the previous year, where mobile CWV improved by 6.99% and desktop by 6.25%.
A line chart illustrates the gradual improvement in WordPress mobile CWV approval rate throughout the year, with a slight drop between March and April 2023 due to a change in the calculation of largest content painting (LCP) algorithm.
CWV metrics for mobile
Of note is the improvement of individual CWV metrics on mobile platforms.
Screenshot from WordPress, December 2023
Mobile LCP pass rate increased by 8.89%, CLS pass rate by 4.22% and FID pass rate by 0.87%.
LCP experienced the largest increase, aligning with the WordPress performance team’s focus on this metric, given that it had the lowest base pass rate.
Despite a modest increase in FID, its already high pass rate makes this less of a concern.
The TTFB rate, while not a Core Web Vital metric, is integral to LCP and received attention in 2023.
Screenshot from WordPress, December 2023
Mobile TTFB pass rate improved by 3.10% and desktop rate by 3.53%.
Impact of WordPress Versions 2023
The release of WordPress versions 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4 focused on improvements in load time performance, particularly affecting the LCP and TTFB metrics.
For each version, data was collected comparing sites before and after upgrading to the new version.
This approach, while not a strict A/B comparison, helped reduce noise and provide clearer information.
For example, the WordPress 6.2 release showed a 0.01% improvement in mobile LCP and a 0.65% improvement in mobile TTFB.
Screenshot from WordPress, December 2023
Version 6.3 brought more significant improvements, with a 4.72% increase in mobile LCP.
Screenshot from WordPress, December 2023
The release of WordPress 6.4 also contributed to improvements, albeit more modestly.
Screenshot from WordPress, December 2023
How WordPress Core Web Vitals Affect the Web
WordPress’ high usage rate means that its performance has a substantial effect on the web as a whole.
Screenshot from WordPress, December 2023
In 2023, WordPress’ improvement in CWV pass rates surpassed that of non-WordPress sites.
For example, the mobile CWV approval rate for non-WordPress sites improved by 3.68%, compared to 8.13% for WordPress. This demonstrates the important role of WordPress in improving web performance.
Interaction with the next painting is coming in March 2024
Looking ahead to 2024, WordPress faces new challenges and opportunities.
One major change is the replacement of the FID metric with Interaction to Next Paint (INP).
INP is a more comprehensive measure of interactivity, and its introduction is expected to reduce overall CWV pass rates.
Screenshot from WordPress, December 2023
The WordPress performance team is taking this into account in their planning for 2024, inviting community contributions to their roadmap.
next steps
As a marketing professional, it is essential to stay up to date with the latest developments developments to Core Web Vitals, considering the implications for website performance and SEO.
With the upcoming change to INP in 2024, it is vital to prepare for these changes and consider how they may affect your website’s performance metrics.
With this change in mind, WordPress developers and site owners should start focusing on optimizing for INP. Prioritizing INP means optimizing your site to ensure it responds quickly and smoothly to user interactions.
Another suggestion was to explore more ways to improve TTFB.
This may include optimizing hosting environments, using caching strategies, or tuning content delivery networks, rather than just focusing on in-core server response time from WordPress.
Featured image: Primakov/Shutterstock
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