● The short answer
Core Web Vitals are three Google metrics for real-user page experience: Largest Contentful Paint (loading, good is 2.5 seconds or less), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness, 200 milliseconds or less) and Cumulative Layout Shift (stability, 0.1 or less). Google says its ranking systems use them, but relevance comes first. They matter most as a tiebreaker and for conversions.
Key takeaways
- Core Web Vitals are LCP (2.5 seconds or less), INP (200 milliseconds or less) and CLS (0.1 or less).
- Google measures them on real visits at the 75th percentile, split by mobile and desktop.
- Google uses them in ranking, but relevance outweighs page experience.
The three metrics
| Metric | What it measures | Good threshold |
|---|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | How long until the main content (often a hero image or headline) appears | 2.5 seconds or less |
| Interaction to Next Paint (INP) | How quickly the page responds when someone taps, clicks or types | 200 milliseconds or less |
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | How much the layout jumps around while loading | 0.1 or less |
INP replaced First Input Delay as a Core Web Vital in 2024. Google measures these at the 75th percentile of real visits, split by mobile and desktop, so a page passes only if most visitors, not just you on office Wi-Fi, get a good experience. The thresholds come from >Google's web.dev documentation.
The how is where we come in.
What we walk through with you, for your business:
- Do they affect rankings?
- How to check yours
- Common fixes
- Our take
Every business is different, so the plan is too. Tell us where you want to show up and we will show you what it takes.
Talk to usMore questions
Why does PageSpeed Insights show different scores each time?
The lab test at the bottom simulates a load on a throttled device, and results vary with network and server conditions. The field data at the top is a 28-day rolling view of real Chrome users and is far more stable. Judge pass or fail by field data, and use lab data to find causes.
Do Core Web Vitals matter for AI search?
Not directly as far as anyone has published. AI assistants pick sources mostly on relevance and trust. Indirectly, a fast, stable page is easier for crawlers to fetch and more pleasant for the visitors who do click through from an AI citation, which still matters for leads.
Sources
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