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Core Web Vitals are Google's three measures of how a page feels to a real visitor: how fast the main content appears, how quickly the page responds, and how stable the layout is. They're part of the page experience signals Google uses, and more importantly, they track closely with whether people stay.
The three metrics and their thresholds
| Metric | Measures | Good | Poor |
|---|---|---|---|
| LCP | Time until the largest visible element renders | 2.5 s or less | Over 4 s |
| INP | Delay between an interaction and the next visual update | 200 ms or less | Over 500 ms |
| CLS | How much visible content shifts unexpectedly | 0.1 or less | Over 0.25 |
Interaction to Next Paint replaced First Input Delay as a Core Web Vital in March 2024. It's harder to pass because it looks at responsiveness across the whole visit, not just the first click.
How Google measures them
Google uses field data from real Chrome users, not a single lab test. A page passes when at least 75 percent of visits meet the "good" threshold, assessed separately for mobile and desktop. That's why a site can score well in a lab test on a fast office connection and still fail in Search Console.
Fixing LCP
- Serve the hero image in a modern format at the size it's displayed, and don't lazy-load it.
- Preload the LCP image and the main web font.
- Cut render-blocking CSS and JavaScript from the top of the page.
- Use a CDN and caching so the first byte arrives quickly.
Fixing INP
- Audit third-party scripts: chat widgets, tag managers, heatmaps. Remove the ones nobody uses.
- Break long JavaScript tasks into smaller pieces so the browser can respond between them.
- Avoid heavy work in click and input handlers; show feedback first, compute after.
Fixing CLS
- Set width and height on images and video so space is reserved before they load.
- Reserve space for ads, embeds and cookie banners.
- Load fonts with sensible fallbacks to limit text reflow.
Start in Google Search Console's Core Web Vitals report. It groups failing URLs by issue, so you fix a template once instead of chasing pages one by one.