Core Web Vitals are Google’s official signals for measuring the page experience on your site. If you’ve been hearing about them and aren’t sure what they mean for your business, you’re about to find out.
This article explores the three core web vitals, how to run a core web vitals analysis, and what the next update means for your site. By the end, you’ll have a clear picture of where your site stands and what needs fixing.
Your website deserves a fair shot at ranking well before the next update rolls out. So, read on to find out exactly what to check, fix, and track right now.
Think of core web vitals as Google’s report card for your site’s user experience. There are three official metrics:
Together, they tell Google exactly how real users experience your pages.
Google rolled out core web vitals in mid-June 2021 as part of its broader page experience update. Since then, web vitals have become one of the clearest quality signals Google uses to judge whether a site deserves to rank well.
We’ve seen it firsthand with clients across Brisbane. Sites with poor web vitals scores consistently underperformed in search, even when their content was solid. After fixing the core web metrics, their search rankings picked up within weeks.
Each of the aforementioned three metrics tells Google something different about your site’s user experience.
Largest contentful paint measures how long the biggest visible element on a page takes to load. That could be a hero image, a heading, or a block of text. Good to know: Google’s threshold for a good LCP score is 2.5 seconds or under.
We worked with a South Bank business last year whose LCP sat at 6 seconds. After optimising their images and fixing render-blocking resources, it dropped to 1.9 seconds. Their page load time and search rankings both improved within a month.
First input delay measures the gap between a user’s first click and the browser’s response to that action. In plain terms, it tracks how quickly your site reacts to user interaction. A good first input delay score sits below 100 milliseconds.
Most of the input delay issues we see come from heavy JavaScript loading in the background. So, if your site runs a lot of third-party scripts, this is the metric to watch closely.
Cumulative layout shift measures visual stability, specifically how much page elements shift around unexpectedly while the page loads. You know that frustrating experience where you go to tap a button, and it jumps out from under your finger? That’s a high CLS score doing its worst.
We recommend you aim for a CLS score of 0.1 or lower. Anything above 0.25 needs attention straight away because it signals a genuinely poor user experience, and Google will rank more stable pages above yours.
Most site owners run a speed test and think they’re done (and that’s only half the picture). There are actually two types of performance data Google looks at, and they serve very different purposes.
Once you know the difference, you’ll approach your core web vitals analysis in a completely different way.
| Lab Data | Real User Data | |
| Source | Controlled test environment | Actual site visitors |
| Tools | Lighthouse, PageSpeed Insights | Chrome User Experience Report |
| Used by Google for ranking? | No | Yes |
| Best for | Diagnosing and debugging | Measuring real-world data |
Lab data comes from controlled tests run in tools like Lighthouse. It’s useful for spotting and fixing core web vitals issues, but it isn’t what Google uses to rank your site.
Real user data, also called field data, is collected from Chrome users visiting your pages and fed into the Chrome User Experience Report. It’s often called CrUX data, which is short for Chrome User Experience Report data.
In our experience, we’ve seen sites with near-perfect lab scores still struggle in search because their CrUX data told a different story. However, real user monitoring gives you an accurate picture of how actual users experience your site across mobile and desktop devices.
You can run a core web vitals analysis for free using Google PageSpeed Insights and Google Search Console. Both pull real performance data straight from Google, and together they give you a thorough, in-depth analysis of your site’s performance.
Follow these steps to measure core web vitals on your site:
Running through these four steps gives you a clear, repeatable process for staying on top of your site’s performance. Do it consistently, and you won’t be caught off guard when the next Core Web Vitals update rolls out.
Hitting good Core Web Vitals scores puts your site in a stronger position before the next update rolls out. So, to pass Google’s page experience threshold, all three Core Web Vitals metrics need to land in the “Good” range across real users visiting your site.
Here’s what those thresholds look like across each Core Web Vitals metric:
| Metric | Good | Needs Improvement | Poor |
| Largest Contentful Paint | Under 2.5s | 2.5s to 4s | Over 4s |
| First Input Delay | Under 100ms | 100ms to 300ms | Over 300ms |
| Cumulative Layout Shift | Under 0.1 | 0.1 to 0.25 | Over 0.25 |
A site that clears all three thresholds ranks better against competitors targeting the same search engine keywords (mobile and desktop scored separately, so clearing one isn’t enough). Users perceive fast, stable pages as more trustworthy, and that directly affects how long they stay on your site.
Even a 1-second improvement in page load can reduce bounce rates noticeably. That’s why core web vitals performance feeds directly into your search rankings and how real users experience your pages day to day.
Google doesn’t announce exact update dates. By the time most sites react, the drop in search rankings has already happened.
We’ve seen it play out firsthand. When Google tightened its core web vitals thresholds in 2023, several sites we audited had no idea their core web vitals data was sitting in the Poor range.
Their web fonts were render-blocking, page load times were slow, and nobody had checked their lab tools in months. Solid search engine optimisation work was getting undermined by poor core web vitals metrics the whole time.
The next update will likely raise the bar higher. Sites that improve core web vitals now won’t need to scramble when new thresholds kick in. That means optimising images, using a content delivery network, and watching your usage statistics inside Search Console regularly.
Now that you know what core web vitals are, the next step is doing something about them. Every section of this article points to the same conclusion: preparation before an update beats recovery after one.
Always ensure these are in order before the next update hits:
Poor core web vitals performance affects your search rankings, user experience, and how real users perceive your entire website. At DevelopersDex, we help Brisbane businesses run a full core web vitals analysis and fix what’s holding their site back.
Ready to get started? Contact us today.
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