Core Web Vitals
Google's three-metric measure of page experience: speed, responsiveness, and stability.
Core Web Vitals are three user-experience metrics that Google uses as a ranking signal: LCP (speed), INP (responsiveness), and CLS (visual stability). They're measured on real-user Chrome sessions via the Chrome UX Report.
Context
Core Web Vitals became a ranking signal in 2021 and have been refined since. The current good thresholds: LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1 — on 75% of real-user sessions.
CWV is a tiebreaker, not a primary ranking factor. Two sites with equivalent content authority: the faster one wins. Three sites with different content quality: content quality wins. Teams that obsess over CWV while ignoring content are optimizing the wrong lever.
Top-quartile marketing sites in 2026 achieve sub-1s LCP, sub-100ms INP, and sub-0.05 CLS on mobile field data — well beyond Google's 'good' thresholds, which only establish a floor.
Passing CWV thresholds does not guarantee ranking improvements. Failing them caps your ranking potential. The right mental model: CWV is a gate, not a lever.
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