Core Web Vitals explained for business owners

The three measurements

1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)How long until the biggest thing on the screen, usually the main photo or headline, has loaded. Good is 2.5 seconds or less.
2. Interaction to Next Paint (INP)How quickly the page responds when someone taps a button or opens a menu. Good is 200 milliseconds or less. It replaced an older measure, First Input Delay, in March 2024.
3. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)How much the page jumps around while loading, like a button moving just as you tap it. Good is 0.1 or less.

How Google measures them

Google uses data from real Chrome users visiting your site, and judges each measure at the 75th percentile, so three out of four visits need to be good. You’ll see the results in Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report and in PageSpeed Insights. Small sites often don’t have enough visitors for real-user data, in which case PageSpeed shows a lab test instead.

Does it affect rankings?

Google uses page experience, including Core Web Vitals, as one of many signals. A fast page won’t outrank a much more relevant one. But between similar local businesses, a slow site loses customers before it loses rankings: people leave pages that take too long on a phone.

Usual causes of bad scores

• LCP: huge uncompressed photos, slow hosting, and sliders or page builders that load a lot of code before the main image.
• INP: heavy scripts: chat widgets, ad and tracking tags, page builders, review carousels.
• CLS: images without set sizes, fonts that swap late, and banners or cookie bars that push content down after it appears.