Google’s Core Web Vitals – What to Know?

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Google is constantly improving its algorithms and Google announced a new algorithm update at the end of May 2020. Google will add three new SEO metrics to measure the user experience on a website even better, also known as the Core Web Vitals.

Emphasis on User Experience

With this update, the user experience on a page will play a (large?) Role in how well websites will rank in the Google Search Engine.

Measure User Experience

User experience has of course been measured by Google for a long time, through signals. The signals that Google is monitoring are:

Loading time / Pagespeed
Security of a website (HTTPS security)
Mobile-friendliness
Usability of a page (e.g. no annoying pop-ups or annoying advertisements).

Google Core Web Vitals

You will probably see a few well-known factors such as security, speed, and mobile-friendliness. The Core Web Vitals is actually a refinement of the existing Pagespeed signal.

Statistics focused on user experience

The Core Web Vitals is also defined by Google as a set of user-centric metrics that quantify key aspects of the user experience. These Core Web Vitals look at the interactivity, loading time, and stability of content while loading.

Main factors for user experience on a page

Core Web Vital 1: Largest Content Paint (LCP)

The LCP concerns the loading time. For good user experience, the LCP should start within 2.5 seconds from the moment the page is loaded. This concerns the largest element of a page, for example, the image, scripts, and other HTML at the top of a page.

Core Web Vital 2: First Input Delay (FID)

The FID is the time how quickly a page responds to actions performed on the page, for example clicking a button. The longer an action lasts, the more negative the score. For a good user experience, an FID should be less than 100 milliseconds.

Core Web Vital 3: Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

With CLS, the amount of content that still jumps during loading is measured. For example, you should think of jumping buttons because images are still being loaded. Staggered content is experienced as very disturbing by users. For good user experience, the page should have a CLS of 0.1 or less.

Measure Core Web Vitals?

That has been possible for a while. Various tools are available that can measure three new Search Engine Optimization metrics including Search Console and PageSpeed ?? Insights. The other tools are: