Core Web Vitals and Impact on Google SEO Ranking

Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that measure the user experience of a website. They are designed to help web developers and marketers understand how well a website is performing in terms of loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. Google has stated that these metrics will be used as part of its ranking algorithm, so it’s important for website owners to understand and optimize them in order to improve their search engine rankings.

What are Web vitals in SEO?

There are three Core Web Vitals that Google is currently focusing on:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

This measures the time it takes for the main content of a page to load and become visible to the user. A good LCP score is 2.5 seconds or less.

LCP is an important metric because it reflects the time it takes for the main content of a webpage to become visible to the user. If the LCP is slow, it can lead to a poor user experience, as users may become frustrated while waiting for the content to load. On the other hand, a fast LCP can help improve the user experience and increase the chances that users will stay on the webpage and engage with the content.

First Input Delay (FID)

This measures the time it takes for a page to become interactive, or respond to user input. A good FID score is 100 milliseconds or less.

FID is an important metric because it reflects the time it takes for a webpage to become responsive to user input. If the FID is slow, it can lead to a poor user experience, as users may become frustrated while waiting for the webpage to respond to their actions. On the other hand, a fast FID can help improve the user experience and increase the chances that users will stay on the webpage and engage with the content.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

This measures the amount of unexpected layout shifts that occur during the loading of a page. A good CLS score is 0.1 or less.

If the layout of a webpage shifts unexpectedly while the page is loading, it can lead to a poor user experience, as users may become frustrated or confused by the changing layout. On the other hand, a stable layout can help improve the user experience and increase the chances that users will stay on the webpage and engage with the content.

How do Web vitals affect SEO?

Google has said that it will use Core Web Vitals to evaluate the user experience of a website, and that websites with good scores on these metrics will be considered to have a “good user experience.” In general, Google tends to rank websites with a good user experience higher in search results, so improving your scores on Core Web Vitals could potentially help improve your search engine rankings.

Does failing Core Web Vitals affect SEO?

It’s important to note that while optimizing for Core Web Vitals can be helpful for improving your search engine rankings, it’s just one factor among many that Google takes into account when ranking websites. It’s important to have a well-designed and user-friendly website, with high-quality content and a good user experience, in order to rank well in search results.

If you are concerned about your Core Web Vitals scores and their potential impact on your search engine rankings, you can use tools like PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse to identify specific issues and make improvements to your website. Some strategies for improving your Core Web Vitals scores include optimizing images and other large files to reduce their size, using a content delivery network (CDN) to serve content from servers that are closer to the user, enabling browser caching, minimizing the use of third-party scripts and widgets, and using lazy loading to only load content as it is needed.

How to Test Core Web Vitals Using Chrome Lighthouse?

Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool for improving the quality of web pages. It runs audits on a webpage and generates a report on the performance, accessibility, and best practices of the page. Lighthouse is available as a Chrome extension, which you can use to audit any webpage that you are currently visiting in Chrome.

To use Lighthouse in Chrome, you will need to install the Lighthouse extension from the Chrome Web Store. Once the extension is installed, you can open it by clicking on the Lighthouse icon in the top-right corner of your Chrome browser.

To run an audit with Lighthouse, you will need to navigate to the webpage that you want to audit in Chrome. Then, click on the Lighthouse icon and select the audits that you want to run. Lighthouse offers a number of different audits, including performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO. Once you have selected the audits that you want to run, click the “Generate report” button to start the audit.

Lighthouse will run the selected audits and generate a report with the results. The report will include a score for each audit, as well as specific recommendations for how to improve the performance, accessibility, and best practices of the webpage. You can use this report to identify issues with your webpage and make improvements to enhance the user experience and improve your search engine rankings.

To improve your Core Web Vitals scores, you can try the following strategies:

• Optimize images and other large files to reduce their size and improve loading speed.
• Use a content delivery network (CDN) to serve content from servers that are closer to the user.
• Enable browser caching so that frequently visited pages load faster.
• Minimize the use of third-party scripts and widgets, which can slow down the loading of a page.
• Use lazy loading to only load content as it is needed.

It’s worth noting that while optimizing for Core Web Vitals can help improve your search engine rankings, it’s just one factor among many that Google takes into account when ranking websites. It’s important to have a well-designed and user-friendly website, with high-quality content and a good user experience, in order to rank well in search results.